


Blueprint Specials

by Half_SubmergedinPurgatory



Series: Cell Block Tango [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Cell Block Tango Verse, Gen, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Pack Dynamics, Pre-WinterIron, SOE Peggy Carter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-05-07 02:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14661753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory/pseuds/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory
Summary: Bucky Barnes is the most Alpha Alpha an Alpha can be. Except for the fact that small sickly Steve Rogers is his Prime, despite absolutely everybody having a problem with that.Bucky Barnes is a Redline. He's tough, he's smart, a bit feral, and he's...he's not very dominant. He's got a soft spot for kids and the elderly. He's only got a few close connections in his pack - doesn't care to make more. He doesn't act much like a Redline at all.He's a little bit strange, but his heart is in the right place. It's a pity that war, Hydra, and the Red Room don't care about where his heart is - all they care about is that he's strange. The kind of strange that they can use.(Follows Bucky and, to a degree, Steve through their childhood in Brooklyn to Bucky as the Winter Soldier pre-CBT)





	1. Sad Sack

**Author's Note:**

> Since this is a pretty big AU series, here's a codex of sorts for the world!
> 
> There are 3 "assignments" a person can have: **Alpha, Beta, and Omega**.
> 
>  **Alphas** are defined by their peppery/crisp emotional scent signatures/pheromones. Their scent is forceful and has a lot of throw - if an Alpha is feeling something, you're gonna know all about it! Alphas are very action-oriented, weak to emotional cues from their pack members, and tend to be aggressive/dominating in the face of social challenges. Their body language is LOUD though they have low self-awareness about it.
> 
>  **Betas** are very independent and emotionally stable. They only tend to form weak pack bonds and don't respond much to emotional cues. Their scents are really variable and hard to trace, therefore they rely heavily on body language as adults to get their points across.
> 
>  **Omegas** are defined by their rich and complex scents that force a physiological reaction of shallow "scent-testing" breaths. Omega scents are "fascinating" and influence others to empathize with them, therefore there is a strong social stigma against Omegas using emotional manipulation deceptively or for selfish reasons. Like Alphas, Omegas are weak to the emotional cues of pack and are socially dominant big personalities, though their approach is more subversive than Alphas. Omegas mostly express themselves with scent!
> 
> The Alpha and Omega assignments are further subdivided by " **lineage strength** " which is a government-mandated measure that looks at how strongly their pheromones affect others and how strongly they react to pheromones. Stronger lineage = stronger reaction. The measure is used by the public to describe a person's personality and pack dynamics and is basically a form of stereotyping that is often inaccurate.
> 
> The strongest lineage for Alpha's is " **Redline Alpha** ", while the strongest for Omega's is " **Queen Bitch** ", though this is considered an archaic lineage that nobody in North America acknowledges as being real. 
> 
> Pack instinct is a powerful goddamn thing in Omegas and Alphas, akin to the human need for touch except stronger. Omegas tend to centre pack on locations, while Alphas tend to choose people to very loyal to. Betas always pick both people and a place, though it applies to fewer people and more weakly than it does in Alphas or Omegas. 
> 
> Pack can be a fairly loose structure composed of weak bonds or something much tighter! Most people need support from their pack and prefer having at least a few tight bonds - not having them is seen as asocial and bad. Pack is VERY IMPORTANT in North America!!! 
> 
> This world has a lot of much more detailed rules, but most other exposition will be dealt with in-story.

Winifred Barnes married a soldier ( _George Barnes, a tall man with icy blue eyes and the cockiest smile you’d ever seen. Everyone had told her he'd be trouble_ ) in the early days of WWI. She was proud of her husband’s loyalty, his dedication to her and his war pack, the way he seemed like he would do **anything** for them. In a way, it was like the whole army was full of his charges, people for him to defend.  
  
He was an exemplary Redline Alpha. He influenced everyone he touched, protected them, protected HER. He filled up all of her empty spaces with his scent and his touch and his sheer presence whenever he came back, though when he left with his pack ( _ **her pack**_ ) she was always left...cold. So when he came home on leave, she was more than ready to have a family with him.  
  
She'd been so excited.  
  
Winifred found out she was pregnant in November of 1916. Her husband’s unit was attacked in January, one of his men downed by enemy fire. By February, an army officer was standing at her door to tell her that her husband had had a 'Redline Incident' and wouldn’t be coming home.  
  
One of his pack members had died in her husband's arms. George had gone berserk, throwing away his gun to attack his enemies with his bare hands. His fight scent, the sheer force of his rage, had sent his entire unit ( _more than twenty men_ ) over the edge.  
  
They’d been wiped out.  
  
The officer grimaced at the word Redline like it left a bad taste in his mouth, his shoulders lifting, his scent whispering 'disgust' and hanging around Winifred like a cloud. His whole attitude made it seem like this...this Redline incident happened all the time at war ( _Winifred could distinctly remember meeting a woman with haunted eyes, a Redline who had lost everyone. She remembered the resignation in her face. The self-hatred_ ).  
  
Why did they draft Alphas then? What was the point in pulling in Strong Alpha women? Was it really a step forward for equality or was it just going to lose them the war?  
  
What was the point?  
  
She cried for hours when her door finally shut. She was empty - nearly empty, not quite-empty, only filled by one child in a world where she had barely anyone left ( _her parents long dead, no siblings, her cousins left behind in Ireland_ ). She cradled her belly as it cramped with anxiety. Lineage strength tended to be passed down from the Strongest parent. Her baby, her son ( _she was so sure he’d be a son, just like his father_ ) - was he going to be Redline, too?  
  
She hoped not. She hoped the war ended soon enough that she’d never have to worry about it. One thing was sure in her mind, though: her son would never be a soldier.

________

  
James Buchanan Barnes is born on March 10th, 1917. Though Winifred had always heard babies looked like their parents, her son just looked like a baby. Tiny, wrinkled, sobbing his little heart out.  
  
Winifred was lonely and desperate, would've clung to anything that resembled family ( _pack, pack, pack-_ ), but she thought she would've loved James even if she hadn't been. She loved him immediately, completely, with all the dedication she could muster. He was healthy, God bless. She would be raising him alone, having lost most of her pack to war and any tenuous bonds she had left to her husband’s passing ( _people avoiding her and her pain in the streets_ ). But James was healthy, so she could manage (s _he hoped she could manage. The loneliness had been eating at her towards the end of her pregnancy. She was a Mid Alpha, couldn't help but project her pain at strangers, however all offers of help weren't trustworthy to her, not after the way that officer had said ‘Redline’_ ).  
  
Winifred’s scent of affection, only tinged slightly with anxiety, filled her hospital room like crisp morning air. James stopped crying, blinking up at her with his big baby blues before falling asleep.  
  
Yeah, Winifred could manage. And if she couldn’t, she’d let her pride ( _her fears_ ) go and let strangers help.

________

  
Within a year, Winifred Barnes lost her apartment in Manhattan. Too expensive for an army wife whose husband was disgraced just before death. Too expensive for a packless woman. Her landlord said it reeked of desperation, that bitch.  
  
She moved to the boroughs, settled down in a ramshackle place in Brooklyn just as the war ends. There are celebrations in the street, the scent of joy filling the air, and James giggles delightedly.  
  
He’s too young to respond to such things, and yet here he was ( _anxiety crept back up her spine, icy fingers of knowing. Each beat of her heart said the same thing: ‘Redline, Redline, Redline’_ ).  
  
She takes him out in the parades, the massive parties sweeping the streets, in order to take food and money and kindness where she could. The atmosphere is warm and many people brush against her, laughing as they nuzzle her hands or ruffle her hair, sweeping their wrists over her baby’s blanket ( _peppery punches of 'victory' 'satisfaction' and 'joy' popping and bursting around her, smooth tones of Omega delight wrapping around her like a blanket, Beta joy and relief underlying it all_ ).  
  
Winifred is so terribly lonely - it’s been too long since people were close to her like this. In Ireland people were freer with their touches, but America treated them with the utmost intimacy it seemed. These touches, these little exchanges of scent, soothed an ache inside of her.  
  
James smiled and his little fingers closed around a stranger’s index.  
  
“Are you on your own out here?”  
  
The stranger, a man with dark red hair and skin that nearly matched it ( _a day labourer with strong arms and crooked teeth - she’d seen him by the docks before. An Omega who was always swinging children around and laughing_ ), asked. Winifred gritted her teeth, then smiled.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She admitted,  
  
“It’s just him and me here. We had to move...”  
  
The man’s bushy eyebrows knitted. He clasped her shoulder strongly, a single finger on the opposite hand still held gently still despite James’ attempts to shove it in his mouth.  
  
“Brooklyn knows all bout poverty and nothin' bout bein' alone.”  
  
He told her, flicking her nose and chuckling at her affronted expression,  
  
“I’ll tell the Neighbors to bring you some baby supplies, come meet the little babe, and we’ll all have a long chat.”  
  
He ruffles her hair, keeping an eagle eye on the way she couldn’t help but lean into his hand.  
  
“The war is over, Darlin’.”  
  
He said,  
  
“No need to be alone no more.”  
  
( _His protective soothing scent stuck to her for hours_ )

________

  
James Barnes’ first memory is of his mother’s tiny Brooklyn apartment bursting at the seams with people. A man with red hair, Angus Dodson, laughs so loud that his upstairs neighbors slam their feet into the floor. He remembers thinking Angus could cause thunderstorms with his joy - remembers saying it and Angus laughing even harder.  
  
( _Angus took him out often in the summer, swinging him around in the rain in the dirty streets as his mother called out to him from their apartment window._  
  
_"Angus,”_  
  
_She’d cry out,_  
  
_“You’re as dumb as a turkey! All you do is look up at the sky when it rains, so you’re gonna drown!”_  
  
_And Angus would laugh, Thunder would roll, and James’ eyes would widen with wonder_ )  
  
He’s raised by the whole community, it seems. His mother is nearly never alone, though she always stands a little off to the side ( _a distance between her and the others that he wouldn’t understand for a long long time_ ). James goes hungry sometimes, but never for long, not when the other kids would filch bread from the baker and the adults would come home sunburnt but content with their daily earnings.  
  
It doesn’t take long for James to pick favorites amongst them. His mother is the first person whose pheromones he begins to really respond to, though Angus is a close second, as is Mrs McDougle ( _a woman who teaches him French and Celtic, then eventually gives in to his terrible accent and teaches him science instead_ ). He just KNOWS when they’re upset. Gets all kinds of defensive over them.  
  
He can’t stand watching his mother cry. And he noticed the distance between her and the others, even when all the other children don’t spot a thing.  
  
James is 4 when his mother meets Charles Dumont, a man who looks just like him. His mom tells him Charles looks like his daddy, which just solidified the idea that Charles ISN’T his daddy in his head. That Charles is a fake.   
  
( _He hates him, but he doesn't have a tantrum. Instead he watches him - Angus taught him to watch people he hated. That or become indifferent to them_ )  
  
They get married real soon - sooner than James expected. Time passes slowly for children, so when he gets older James thinks they must’ve married within weeks for him to notice ( _married too fast, something wrong just under the surface_ ).  
  
They don’t have a certificate or anything for him to check the date.  
  
James doesn’t go to the ceremony. He hides out in the apartment with his father’s journals, getting Mrs McDougle to teach him the hard words. She explains to him that single parents aren’t common, that pack is important and that children like James need people around, that his mommy needed people.  
  
But James doesn’t get it. There ARE people around. There’s always people around.  
  
Mrs McDougle says some people are special. They’re closer than others - there’s different ways to be close, and this is a way that people NEED. Alphas and Omegas especially.  
  
James can’t help but ask if that’s why his mom is always apart from everyone ( _except for Angus. Angus always seemed to be reaching out, but other people always held him back_ ). If that’s why Charles always stands so close to his mom, why he got the sense that Charles was all over her ( _parts of him writing over parts of her, parts James loved-_ ).  
  
He asks Mrs McDougle why she doesn’t get closer to his mom.  
  
She winces, doesn’t really explain much of anything, and leaves shortly afterwards. It takes Bucky well into his own social education ( _sitting in a rundown classroom and looking at a chalk drawing of Omega scent glands, how children can smell pheromones and respond weakly to them if they came from a Strong lineage, but how it usually took till presentation for them to have a scent, for them to understand it-_ ) to understand his mother doesn’t really have a pack, doesn’t fit into the one already in place in Brooklyn despite fitting into Angus’ life.  
  
That she’s not an outcast, but she is **strange**.  
  
His mom fits in better when she gives birth to Rebecca later that year. James, Bucky now to his classmates, is scared that Rebecca will be an outcast. Or that Charles will leave and his mom will be alone again, not outcast but strange.  
  
So he strives to learn to 'fit in'. He dogs Angus’ heels, pestering the men at the docks for stories and jokes, scampers off to repeat them to his classmates. He glares at everyone he doesn’t know who tries to touch Becca. He snaps at the ones he DOES know but doesn’t like.  
  
An adult Alpha slaps him when no one is watching, pushing him away from the shivering orphan he had found on the church steps ( _abandoned so they were **his** now_ ), and he **never** forgets it.  
  
He gets a little weird about children in general after that. They’re defenseless. They don’t know anything about packs. They don’t even have a pack! The only people who can keep them safe are adults, and adults only care about pack. So now BUCKY will be their pack. And Bucky’s big group of friends will be their pack, too!  
  
The logic makes perfect sense to him as a child. No one ever disproves it, so it engrains itself deeper and deeper into him.  
  
The adults notice, but they dismiss it. None of Bucky’s behavior is that uncommon in unpresented Strong Alphas. Winifred is nervous, sees the signs from her first husband’s childhood stories, but she keeps quiet. Her son is popular and she wants him to stay that way.  
  
Charles’ starts looking at him a little strangely, though. And Bucky ignores him - he gets aggressive with some of the other adult Alphas when they push him around, though not nearly as much as expected, but Charles warrants no reaction. Little Alphas usually push back against family first, usually try kittenplay attempts at dominance, usually follow their closest Alpha relatives around like ducklings. But not Bucky.   
  
( _Her and Angus have a hushed conversation about it just before Bucky turns 8. Angus is worried he’s made Bucky spend too much time with Omegas, maybe prevented him from learning how to socialize with Alphas, but that can’t possibly be right because he snaps at Mrs McDougle when she’s rude to Winifred and he’s been sharp with any Alpha who plays roughly with Becca. That’s Alpha, even if he’s not the right shade of aggressive, even if he’s already a little devious..._ )  
  
Bucky’s not an outcast. He’s well-liked, already has a proto-pack of children who follow him around. But he is strange.

________

  
Steve Rogers is born July 4th, 1919 to single mother and Weak Alpha Sarah Rogers. Her husband, an abusive bastard from a far stronger lineage than hers, died in an 'accident' back in Ireland. Sarah had to leave her pack behind to keep them out of jail, but she had no regrets.  
  
Her son is beautiful. Premature, tinier than she ever could’ve imagined, but beautiful.  
  
He responds to her scent despite his youth, studies her face with wide intelligent eyes, and she’s sure he’s going to grow up into something perfect. Loyal, loving, a leader.  
  
He wins over every nurse in the hospital. Reaches back to every person who reaches into his incubator. Clutches at their fingers and smiles like an angel. Cries when they cry, frowns when they come in distressed at his low weight and pale skin.  
  
He’s going to grow up perfectly, Sarah thinks, even if he's struggling now. For three blissful years spent in the company of other new mothers ( _with whom she’s forming loose bonds of friendship and love_ ), she’s right.  
  
And then he gets sick.  
  
That time, it’s a sinus infection, running right down into his chest. He can’t smell a thing and he’s always crying, unresponsive to his mother or anyone else.  
  
Sarah doesn’t live close enough to the hospital for him to stay there overnight. He’s sick for months before Sarah’s fledgling pack raises the money she needs to move.  
  
She winds up in Brooklyn, alone ( _painfully, horribly alone. Her skin felt too tight sometimes. Sometimes she felt phantom touches against her neck-_ ) and with a sick toddler. The neighborhood is new to her and she’s spent all of her time in the hospital, working and checking on her son. By the time Steve gets out, she has one or two friends, and no family in the country to speak of.  
  
It’s hard. It would have crushed a weaker woman ( _many children filled the orphanage these days, one or more parents dying in the war, abandoned by the people left over_ ).  
  
It gets harder when Steve gets sick again a few months later. Another sinus infection, and now he’s developing asthma. He gets an ear infection, too ( _and nobody helps. **Nobody helps**_ ).  
  
It’s becoming clear that his body is accruing damage. His response time is slowed, he has to watch Sarah’s face more closely to know how she’s feeling. His hearing isn’t as good in his left ear.  
  
At age 5, he gets a fever Sarah can’t reduce at home and Steve has his second extended hospital stay. It takes over 4 months for him to be able to walk unassisted. 4 months of Hell for Sarah where the ache of being alone nearly drowns her ( _she nearly reaches out to strangers all the time now. Nearly pushes against them to mingle their scents, nearly tries to pull them in, to get them to stay with her. She hides it as best she can at work as a nurse, but she's **lonely**_ ).  
  
When they finally get back to the neighborhood, people ( _an organization called the Neighbors, headed by a brash Omega with scarlet hair_ ) take an interest in keeping them healthy. Sarah is drained, getting a little weak herself, and so she barely forms a whisper of a connection with them despite their best efforts ( _despite hers - she wants to hold onto them, to hold onto what they are offering her, but her body isn't cooperating_ ).  
  
The one person she spends the most time with is Winifred Barnes. Winifred often pulls her and her son into the tiny apartment ( _larger than Sarah’s by far_ ) she shares with her husband and two kids. She stuffs Sarah with tea and scones and worried goodwill.  
  
Her son, Bucky, a charming little thing who is obviously going to grow up Alpha, spends a lot of time by Steve’s bedside. Winifred explains that her son is a little bit odd about defenceless children, then winces when Bucky bats Angus’ hands away from Steve’s forehead for the fifth time in a row.  
  
At age 8, Steve gets hit with a crawling rash across his skin, a rattling cough, and a pounding headache. Sarah is finally beginning to really worry for his sense of smell. The rash spreads to his face and he’s hospitalized for months as doctors struggle to salvage the scent bulbs in his nose and to prevent his lungs from accumulating even more damage.  
  
Little kids forget, and many of Steve’s friends did exactly that - they forgot him. All the friendships he’d struggled for years to make were simply...gone. And in their place were groups of children who taunted him relentlessly for being 'broken'.  
  
Even Bucky is running around with a lot of other kids, other kids Steve can’t really smell that well, isn’t all that interested in. Kids from Bucky’s proto-pack, well on their way to something real.  
  
Because Bucky is old enough for assignment. Old enough to form his own bonds.  
  
But Steve is determined to have at least one friend, and as Sarah watches him storm off to win over Bucky Barnes, she smiles just a bit. Because Steve is stubborn and always gets what he wants. She doesn’t see how this time will be any different.


	2. Classification Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky has a proto-pack, but they aren't quite what he wants. Steve takes his chance to win himself a lifelong friend.

Steve begins his plan to win Bucky back over after his first straightforward attempt of,   
  
“Hey, come play with me!”   
  
Failed spectacularly ( _Sarah had known it would, but Steve was stubborn and used to failure. He bounced back before she could even try to comfort him, let alone change his mind_ ).  
  
He actually has a notebook filled with ideas. Sarah isn’t sure if that’s sweet or something to be concerned about ( _her and Winifred titter over it when Sarah goes to her place for tea, but they both keep the books hidden from Charles_ ). Steve has always been a planner, but the contents of that notebook include strategic maps of the city and routes Steve thinks he could run into his old friend on. They're actually pretty accurate ( _Winifred even confirms that Bucky tends to wander around the oldest section of the boroughs, the one Steve has circled three times in green ink_ ). 

Her son is...certainly something. Spent too much time in his own head in the hospital, probably. It had improved his sketches impressively ( _greyscale images of trees and grass and the outdoors he’d been kept from for too lon_ g), had given him imagination, but made him awkward and pushy, too.  
  
Thank God Steve meant well. Sarah took pains to make sure her son at least tried to keep the interests of others in mind ( _though sometimes she was pretty sure her speeches about pack had the opposite effect than intended. They only ever seemed to work when she had Winifred and Angus with her - Steve wasn't old enough yet to know she was a bit of a hypocrite. She dreaded the day he presented and knew how few people Sarah really had in her corner. That stubborn little brat would probably decide he should be friendless, too, just to keep her company)_. 

Bucky’s old enough to begin throwing out his own pheromones beyond the whisper of childhood, interested in forming actual pack connections, and Steve is damaged. Sarah knows he is, even if all the neighbourhood talk of him being broken made her see red ( _made Winifred puff up to her full height of six feet, pulling an impressive scowl out of nowhere_ ). She worries he won't succeed in his mission on her worst days, though he has Bucky's own mother in his corner.   
  
Dozens of failed attempts make her worries grow. Bruises on her sons arms make her worry more ( _no one had touched him, she was sure of that, but Steve was clumsy and fell often when he wandered around trying yet another new plan_ ). 

Steve is a fighter, so he fights for Bucky’s attention. He’s always trying to talk to him, hanging around his crew, but Bucky isn’t easy to get close to. His fringe members, the ones he was least attached to, tended to push Steve around. They wanted to get close to Bucky, too. They weren't gonna let an unpresented kid try and take their place.   
  
They shoved Steve in the dirt more than once. Got some of the inner members to give it a go, too.   
  
But Steve keeps fighting for attention. Eventually, he starts ACTUALLY fighting when the other kids mess around too much, prod Bucky too hard to be aggressive.

Turns out, it's something that happens frequently since Bucky got officially assigned ( _making Bucky hunch his shoulders even as he continued tossing out jokes and quips that had his whole pack in a jovial mood_ ).   
  
Everyone knows Bucky is Redline now, and while the anxiety that causes their parents isn’t present in the kids, they DO think that Redline soldiers were cool and want to see Bucky fight. The Redline reputation for violence is inescapable. 

The kids tussle with him constantly and Bucky always looks guilty when he puts them down ( _and he ALWAYS puts them down_ ). Bucky looks like he doesn't like it. Steve knows Bucky isn't all the interested in challenging the adults, so why would anyone think he'd want to challenge kids? These people were mean - they were bullying him. It's obvious in the way Bucky starts walking a few steps further away from them before Steve begins to interfere.

Steve's dislike of them continues to grow the more he observes. Kids are pushy about things they want, especially when it's obvious someone doesn't want to give it to them.   
  
They keep prodding at Bucky, hailing him as their leader because he's tough, because he's strong, because he can fight ( _though before they'd simply followed him because he took care of them, because he was funny and charming, always quick to tell you what you wanted to hear_ ). They even growl sometimes at the kids Bucky has tasked their group with defending, the orphanage escapees, the gutter brats, just to experience Bucky’s new fight scent.

Just to see if he really is the Alpha he’s supposed to be.  
  
Steve doesn't have the patience to watch them do it after he realizes what's going on. He bites one of the kids _(he doesn’t even care about his name, hopes it’s lost with history_ ) on the hand when he subtly prods a young girl until she starts crying. His snarl drowns out Bucky’s own.  
  
There's a pause where everyone freezes. The girl is staring at Steve with wonder and...so is Bucky, blinking his huge pale eyes at Steve even though Steve doesn’t smell like anything he wants to project, even though he CAN’T ( _he wants Bucky to know Steve is defending him, wants him to know Steve is angry, that he’ll fight-_ ).

The proto-pack kids pout in disappointment as Bucky circles Steve, snuffling at his hair, rubbing his cheeks against the crying little girl in Steve's skinny arms. Steve takes it to mean all the fight has gone out of him, even though he can tell bitten boy is gearing up for one ( _Steve glares at him, showing his blood-stained teeth fiercely_ ). 

Then Bucky grins, big and with all his teeth.

“Stevie,”   
  
Bucky says, all warm and slow in his heaviest dockside drawl,   
  
“I’ve missed ya, ya runt.”

Bucky’s Alphas try to mess with Steve after that, always when Bucky wasn’t around. There's a distinct air of jealousy around them.  
  
They're so **petty**. If they hadn't bullied Bucky in the first place, Bucky would've praised them, too! Stupid!

Steve hates them, though his ma says they aren’t bad kids. Aren’t even bullies, really. She tries to explain to him that Bucky is theirs, that they won’t let an unpresented kid butt in, but Steve knows that Bucky hangs around a lot of unpresented kids and that Bucky doesn’t care ( _no matter how many times people try to tell him otherwise_ ). 

He snaps at his mama, tells her she’s putting Bucky in a box, and then immediately feels guilt wash over him.   
  
Sarah looks so sad, standing hunched over in her scrubs.

“Mama, I’m-“  
  
Steve mumbles, but Sarah shushes him.

“No, Steve.”   
  
She says, looking thoughtful,   
  
“Winifred’s been saying Bucky’s been a bit stressed lately. He’s worried the other boys think he’s strange.”   
  
She brushes her wrist against Steve's neck, ruffles his hair and snuffles at the scent Bucky left behind,   
  
“He is strange, but maybe with you around that can be a good thing. Because you don’t mind, right?”

“Of course!”   
  
Steve puffs up his bony chest,   
  
“Bucky n me aren’t some big headed Alpha jerks! We care bout each other even though I can’t-“   
  
He paws at his nose awkwardly, eyes sparkling,   
  
“We’re pals, jus’ like before!”

Sarah’s smile is strained around the edges. It’s pained - the older Steve gets, the worse he realizes his mama is at hiding her expressions. He’s ok with that, though. He likes knowing how she feels from her face ( _likes how Bucky is still expressive even though he's presented now, that his expressions are loud like his mom's but not as awkward_ ).

“Just like before.”   
  
She tells him, burying her face in the mark Bucky left behind again, rubbing it away with a little lick that had him squirming to escape. Sarah laughs at lets him go after licking his cheek, snorting as he scampers off to the bathroom to wash the scent away.  
  
( _She tries not to worry about encouraging her son to be strange. Tries not to think of how Winifred tucks herself into her husband's side when Bucky turns her way, the way she keeps Becca just a step away from him_ )

_______

  
Steve catches up to Bucky when he’s snuck out at midnight with a loaf of bed and a knife in his teeth. It's red handle gleams in the moonlight, cheap plastic but precious nonetheless. 

He's off to feed the elderly couple on 5th street. Steve's heard that they always smell like pain, that it makes them hard to leave, so most people just never go to them in the first place ( _his ma deals with a lot of people who are hurting, says it's tough to be around them, hard to fight the instinct to help them and only them. Says there's always more people who are hurt. Steve doesn't get why she can't help them all_ ). 

Their pack is long dead. Nobody takes care of them. Except for Bucky, though that's a secret ( _at least, Steve thinks it is_ ). 

Steve clumsily follows Bucky as he clambers up fire escapes and hops over rooftops. He knows he’s making a lot of noise even though his hearing isn’t the best. He can see the amused tilt to Bucky’s mouth when he flits around a corner.

When Steve rushes around the same one, Bucky tackles him, twisting so Bucky hits the ground and Steve lands on top of him with an,   
  
"Oof."

“What’s a runt like you doin’ out in the cold?”   
  
Bucky asks, poking at Steve's ribs. Steve scowls at him, shoving at Bucky’s face and squealing when Bucky nips at his fingers playfully.

“‘m followin’ you.”   
  
Steve grumbles,   
  
“Makin’ sure you get home safe and sound to Miss Winifred.”

He shoves harder at Bucky’s face, chuckling when Bucky pretends to die ( _cracking open one pale eye to watch Steve through dark lashes. Bucky's got a fun face - a lot of contrast. Steve wishes he knew how to draw people_ ).

“‘m not safe no more.”   
  
Bucky groans dramatically,   
  
“I’ve been killed by wee Stevie Rogers. What’ll the ‘megas by the docks, say? They raised me tougher 'n this.”

Steve play-growls,  
  
“I can take ‘em.”   
  
And soaks in the sound of Bucky laughing. Bucky was HIS - no one else made Bucky laugh like this. Nobody else got Bucky to stop keeping a careful eye out, got him to stop watching himself ( _to stop lying like he breathed to get whatever he wanted_ ).

“If yer gonna insist on comin’ with,”   
  
Bucky says, nipping Steve's fingers again,   
  
“Take m’knife. Gotta keep ya safe at night since yer packless.”

Steve doesn’t even complain about the implication that he’s weak, because this is the first time Bucky’s given him a gift. Better yet, it’s one of the knives Angus had given him, some beaten copper blade with a bright red handle that Bucky always kept with him. It was precious, so Bucky giving it up meant Steve was precious, too.

He follows Bucky, only requiring one hand up ( _which he accepts with little to no grace, chomping Bucky's hand the second he scrambled onto the rooftop_ ), into the elderly couple's apartment.

Steve makes them sick person soup as Bucky fusses over them, concentrating hard on touching their curtains and some sweaters - presumably getting some scent of them. Giving them the comfort of an Alpha’s constant presence.

“Hard to get the scent to stay.”   
  
Bucky grumbled,   
  
“M’ dad could make his last awhile cause he was bigger n me. ‘M too young to really,”   
  
He punches his own hand with a loud slap,   
  
“Give ‘er some oomph.”

Bucky looks really sad and small. Steve has never seen him that way before ( _he's also never heard Bucky talk about his dad before. He had thought Charles was his dad, but Bucky called him his name, so that couldn't be right_ ). 

“Can’t bond these two either. Dunno how - don’t get how to make it stick. Ma says you have t’ want it, but they do, too? All a mine feel like newspaper rolling in the street, even t’ Angus.”

Steve tilts his head, watching Bucky carefully accept the way the elderly Omega couple wrapped around him ( _his lips going thin and pale with strain, a thin film of tears forming in his eyes_ ).

“Isn’t that how it is for everyone?”   
  
Steve asks,   
  
“My mama ain’t close to nobody but yours.”

Bucky frowns and chews his lip.

“I don’t think it is.”   
  
He mumbles, then looks away. He knows something ( _and he’s keeping it from Steve_ ). Steve scowls at him. Everybody always felt like they had to protect him from something - he hadn't even been taught the social class most kids his age were because he was sick in bed ( _and because his nose didn't work right, though everybody said it wasn't because of that. Everyone lied_ ). 

“I don’t like secrets.”   
  
He growls and Bucky’s head jerks up in surprise. There weren’t many Betas that ran with Bucky’s crew, so he wasn’t used to being called out for lying.

Steve’s scowl intensifies when Bucky starts laughing. The elderly couple titter, too, so Bucky’s amusement must be strong ( _Steve wishes he wasn’t broken, so he could pick up on it. But this was also why he liked Bucky - everything he did was so big that Steve could always tell what he thought and what was genuine)._

“I'm full'a secrets."   
  
Bucky chuckles, grinning,   
  
"I'll tell ya all about 'em when yer older, runt.” 

They tussle on the floor and it doesn’t feel forced, doesn’t feel like the times he’s seen Bucky struggle for the upper hand against his proto-pack. It feels nice. It feels even nicer when Bucky lets Steve win the fight.

The best part is that Steve feels like he’s managed to win more than just that, though.

_______

  
Nobody has ever paid much attention to Steve. He’s used to being ignored, used to having to shout to have anyone respond to his voice, used to having to use big gestures and little words to make people notice his feelings.  
  
"Hear me!"  
  
He always pleads, but no one answers.   
  
"See me!"   
  
He begs, but even his mom doesn't always turn his way.

So it's an absolute novelty to have Bucky listen to him so easily.

Nowadays he calls Bucky’s name from a street away and will still get an answer. He'll wake up sometimes to Bucky knocking at his door. Sometimes, when he can't sleep well because breathing is hard and his body hurts, Bucky will drag him to the ramshackle houses by the frog pond and will introduce him to the kids that he's hidden there. Bucky's attention is easy to get, even when toddlers are clinging to his shins.

Bucky’s pack has shrunk, too, so there’s fewer people in the way when Steve bounces up to Bucky’s side, lungs screaming from his jog across Brooklyn’s dirty side streets. It changes Steve's life.   
  
He gets to wander with the proto-pack down to the docks to bother Angus for fish and candies.

He gets to play with feral kittens under the dumpster by Miss Darleen’s cafe.

He gets to run off the shifty snake oil salesman who comes into their neighbourhood smelling like lies ( _only to Bucky’s nose and the clever Beta teen who lived in the apartment above his_ ).

The remains of Bucky’s pack try to run him off sometimes still, but he ignores them. Cause Steve already knows he’s won. Knows Bucky is HIS. 

But then one of the bigger girls says he smells like his ma. Is covered with her desperation. The girl takes a big whiff of Steve's scarf, then crinkles her nose in disgust.

And Bucky throws her into a wall, teeth bared and fists clenched. He looks like the Redline they'd all imagined him to be.

After that, it’s just Steve and Bucky mostly, no matter how the other kids try to talk to Bucky. By the time Steve is nearly 10, they’re inseparable.  
  
And then he presents.

 


	3. The Saga of the Sack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve's friendship grows and grows, Bucky's relationship with his step-dad collapses, and some sketchy things happens. 
> 
> Chapter warning: people in Brooklyn REALLY hate molesters.

Just after Bucky’s 10th birthday, his ma walked into his room, sniffed the air, and heaved a massive sigh.  
  
“Well, it ain’t like I was doing anything all that important today.”  
  
She said. Bucky blinked at her, bleary-eyed from sleep as she stuffed him into his Sunday best and dragged him to the clinic. He didn’t fully wake up until he was sitting in a bright blue room with a smiling Omega, a Beta, and his mom.  
  
“Wha-“  
  
He started to ask when the Beta reached over and pinched the Omega’s arm hard. They smelled abruptly distressed and Bucky snarls at the Beta, snapping,  
  
“Hey! She don’t like that!”  
  
The Beta, maintaining eye contact, reaches over to pinch Bucky’s mom. Despite knowing better, Bucky lunges forward and is surprised when a Beta standing behind him ( _that he hadn’t even know was there) caught him around the waist. As Bucky struggled, he picked up the scent of anger building in the first Beta (who frowned in confusion_ ).  
  
The second one waved a some kind of machine over Bucky and the first Beta. It beeped and his mother cheerfully asked,  
  
“So, what’s his assignment?”  
  
And Bucky’s stomach plummeted to his shoes. His mother smelled just the slightest bit nervous. And he COULD smell her - he could smell her better than ever before, could smell everybody in the room, could detect his own pheromones curling angrily around himself instead of just FEELING them.  
  
“Oh wow, he’s got some high readings. It’s been a long time since I’ve actually had to check my charts.”  
  
The second Beta ( _a doctor, Bucky was just beginning to realize_ ) mumbled,  
  
“One moment.”  
  
He flipped through the papers attached to his clipboard, a little furrow digging itself between his brows.  
  
“Ah, yes.”  
  
He said, smiling soothingly despite the edge of concern Bucky could just barely detect ( _Betas were good at hiding things on their face if they wanted, but Bucky’s nose was sharp. Sharp enough he could guess what the doctor was going to say_ ),  
  
“Your son appears to be a Redline Alpha. Congratulations!”

______

The whole day doesn’t feel all that celebratory until Angus drops by with a cake and his new boyfriend, a Beta with sandy hair and a million freckles. They pick Bucky up and toss him in the air even though he’s a pretty big kid now, catching him easily with labor-hardened muscles. He smiles despite himself, and Angus sniffs exaggeratedly along his wrists, reeling back as if he’d been a shot.  
  
“Oh my!”  
  
He cries out, an exaggerated southern drawl making his boyfriend snigger,  
  
“Why I do believe there’s a big Strong Alpha in this here room! I feel faint - darling, catch me!”  
  
There’s rough-housing and sweet ( _if somewhat stale_ ) cake. It makes Bucky feel better - makes his ma smell a bit happier. Becca rushes around excitedly, trying to snitch the last slice of cake.  
  
“We’re celebrating Bucky today, hun.”  
  
His mom says, swatting Becca’s hands away. Becca frowns thunderously and Bucky helplessly drifts up behind her (l _ooming like a particularly protective shadow_ ).  
  
“I want an assignment!”  
  
Becca complains. She keeps complaining as Winifred makes Bucky eat the last of the cake, keeping an eagle eye on him to make sure he doesn’t slip any to his sister. Finally, Becca tears up and Bucky acts like the exact kind of sucker he is.  
  
“I’ll give ya yer assignment, Becks.”  
  
He soothes her, shooting a sharp-look at the giggling adults behind Becca’s head,  
  
“I jus’ gotta pinch Angus a lil’.”  
  
He assigns Becca as a Mid-Alpha when it’s all over and hopes it’ll turn out to be true. Hopes she’ll be normal.

 

______

  
Assignment was weird. It didn’t determine the date of presentation - technically happened after it - but knowing what you were seemed to make people...different.  
  
Before his assignment, Bucky never noticed the group of Alpha boys at the batting cages. He never paid much mind to the way they moved around each other, always linking arms, always trailing after three girls who could out bat a professional and out fight a bear.  
  
Adults had been Bucky’s main concern - they had all the money and the power.  
  
Still, Redlines were supposed to draw a response from other Alphas, right? Omegas, too, but Alphas were always quick to react. If Bucky was curious, he should use the scientific method like he’d been taught. He should answer some questions...  
  
He focuses on wanting their attention. Thinks about how nice it’d be to have more than just kids to run around with - how nice PACK sounds. Maybe he could bring some pack back to his ma and Becca? Make it so their apartment was full of more than just half the neighbourhood adults checking in on Becca now that Bucky was grown.  
  
He’s several feet away when the first Alpha turns, bright-eyed and swinging his arms open for a delighted tackle. He’s rolling on the ground with him when another joins the pile, then another and another and another. The three girls turn their noses up at him at first, posturing a bit, and Bucky half-heartedly shows them his teeth before deciding to wink instead.  
  
The one in pink turns the colour of her shirt.  
  
They play until the sun sets, helplessly touching and tossing each other around, running and hollering and having a grand old time. It’s only later that Bucky learns he whammied them - hit them all so hard with his feelings that they couldn’t help but respond.  
  
He tones it down a bit, afterwards. They still like him.

______

  
Nobody ever thought to look for Bucky in the dusty crawlspace below his apartment building, curled up around his father’s journals and dashing tears away before they could hit the pages. He accidentally smudges blood onto the cover of his favourite one - a journal about the the time his dad met his Second and then the rest of his core pack - and has to jam his head between his knees to avoid throwing up.  
  
He hadn’t meant to punch the leader of the baseball Alpha pack. She’d just...she’d smelled like a challenge, looming over Bucky’s favourite little Alpha ( _quick-witted and sneaky, always surprising Buck_ y) like she owned him. He’d answered the challenge and he’d...  
  
“I want Angus.”  
  
Bucky mumbles, clenching his fists. He missed the calming presence of the Omega, missed the way he’d keep Bucky from getting too excited, the way he’d talk him down.  
  
He knew if he bonded Angus, though, he’d bond him tight. Tighter than his mom had. He didn’t want to take Angus away ( _looming like the girl in the baseball diamond-_ ).  
  
“I don’t wanna avoid ‘im anymore...”  
  
But there was blood on his father’s journal and Bucky was STRANGE, so he had to.

______

  
Steve Rogers snarls and Bucky’s whole world stutters to a stop. Things had been looking dull ( _Bucky had been holding himself back, tucking his feelings inwards_ ) - now, though, they were...colourful.  
  
Bold and bright and **loud.**  
  
Just like Steve. Tiny sickly Steve, face red with exertion as he clung to one of Bucky’s kids like they mattered ( _weren’t something to tease just to get a reaction out of Bucky_ ). Spitfire Steve who looks at Bucky like he’s just Bucky Barnes and not just another Alpha, flashing the white of his teeth.  
  
“Stevie,”  
  
He says, a grin growing on his face as he took in those baby blues and imagined how exciting his life what about to become,  
  
“I missed ya, ya runt.”

 

______

  
A common local sight in Brooklyn, rare anywhere else in American, was a strapping young Redline ( _his little sister riding on his shoulders_ ), trailing after a runt of a child. Keeping a careful on him, allowing himself to be pulled by the hand for hours, grinning and joking and never once resisting, even when the child snarks and snaps at him.  
  
It makes people uncomfortable. The biggest Alpha gang in Brooklyn rubs up on the Redline, all inviting pheromones and expectations. The kid, barely four feet of skin and bones, glares at them and pulls the Redline away.  
  
And the Redline goes with the kid without a word.  
  
Little Steven Rogers says,  
  
“Jump.”  
  
And Bucky Barnes says,  
  
“How high?”  
  
Except it’s more like,  
  
“Higher than you, right?”  
  
It’s wrong. Everything about it is wrong. Steve Rogers is unpresented. Even then, it’s obvious he’ll never be a Strong lineage. Obvious he shouldn’t be able to tell Bucky Barnes where to go and what to do. Shouldn’t cow him into submission.  
  
Bucky says,  
  
“Stevie, c’mon, don’t take ‘im up on that race, yer lungs are like tissue paper-“  
  
And Steve says,  
  
“I’m gonna run that race...twice.”  
  
And Bucky just sighs, trailing along behind him, fussing over him as he wheezes and coughs for days after he runs.  
  
“Have you ever tried to tell Steve what to do?”  
  
Bucky mutters when people ask,  
  
“He’s impossible.”  
  
But he still goes around with Steve. His sister does, too, offering to carry his art supplies with childish concern.  
  
Bucky and Steve argue and argue, Bucky always caving eventually, until the arguing gets quieter. Less physical. Sure, sometimes Bucky picks Steve up and carries him away, laughing as Steve tries to escape before Bucky can drop him at Sarah’s door. Sure, sometimes Bucky snarls at Steve and flicks his nose. But most of the time, Bucky talks circles around him until he’s given up on a fight he doesn’t even remember starting.  
  
In fact, Bucky starts talking down a lot of people. Makes submissive gestures, though when face punching gets involved that stops right quick. The thing is, Bucky shouldn’t be **submitting** to anyone.  
  
There’s a lot of gossip. It always stops when Bucky fixes his gaze on them, though. There’s something in his face that says BAD NEWS in all caps.  
  
The dockside Omegas, the Neighbours, don’t give a care. They pester the pair constantly to join their pack organization since all they do is run around helping people with their chores anyway. They heckle Steve especially heavily, since he’s,  
  
“The key to the big scary Alpha’s heart!”  
  
The Dumont family pack listens to them and reports pack to one of their members.

______

  
Home sometimes doesn’t feel like HOME to Bucky, not since his assignment. His stepdad postures like baseball diamond pack, looks at Bucky with expectation screaming all over the set of his body ( _shoulders forward, reaching towards him, making Bucky all kinds of tense_ ). He looks over Bucky, sneaks up behind him, ALWAYS stands above him.  
  
It bothers him, but he ignores it. He brushes Charles off again and again. He refuses to bend his neck like he would to make anyone else go away, refuses to posture back either. He’s not going to fight his mother’s husband.  
  
He has no idea that he’s making a mistake.

______

  
“Your son ain’t natural, Winny.”  
  
Charles hissed, chasing his wife down the street as she stubbornly strode away from him,  
  
“He doesn’t react like an Alpha. Doesn’t do anything - treats me like I’m dust. He’s a sissy.”  
  
Winifred smells neutral, but her stride is furious enough that Charles knows he struck a nerve.  
  
“What’s wrong with him?”  
  
He demands, catching up enough to grab her shoulder,  
  
“Is it cause he’s Omega-raised? Community raising a kid ain’t that weird, but those Neighbours-“  
  
Winifred slaps his hand off and rounds on him, teeth bared,  
  
“Charles H Dumont,”  
  
She snaps,  
  
“Being raised by Omegas or Betas or ANYONE doesn’t make him less of an Alpha! He ignores you because he doesn’t NEED to fight you!”  
  
Charles puts his hand back on her shoulder, clamping down when she tries to jerk away,  
  
“You calling me weak, Winny? I might not be your ex-“  
  
Winifred sagged in his grip, scent going resigned and irritated,  
  
“I don’t want you to be. I don’t want Buck to be, either. He’s trying to be non-violent.”  
  
Charles snorts, pulling her by the shoulder into his arms,  
  
“He’s gotta learn to be dominant. Strong. A proper Alpha - he don’t gotta be violent, though.”

______  


At age 12, Bucky’s an independent man ( _or so he thinks_ ). He runs his route through the boroughs from dawn till dusk in the summer ( _though he pops in to his teachers places and pesters them for books - he’s recently discovered sci-fi_ ). An average day goes something like this:  
  
At dawn, he walks the dock labourers to work. They’re his - tightly bound and infinitely precious. They laugh and share their morning joe with Bucky just to watch him try to resist making a face. Bucky makes sure they’re safe, nods at Angus while keeping his distance ( _an apology always tucked somewhere behind his lips_ ), and trots off to Steve’s place.  
  
Sarah opens the door and clucks at him for being rowdy in her house, making him scrub the dirt from her floors even though she didn’t really mind. She makes him breakfast and then makes him bring some to Steve. Steve’s sick in bed again, angrily painting industrial cityscapes because one of the old German immigrants told him industry represents rage or something, and Bucky watches him for a bit ( _jamming his fingers in the paint when Steve’s not looking and signing his name in the ash clouds_ ). Then he asks who Steve has agreed to help out that week, wheedles the answer out of him, and he’s off again.  
  
Steve’s a sucker for beauty, so he always winds up working at the florist. Bucky carries flowers all over the city and sneaks out a few daisies for the whipsmart Beta who’d been teaching him to play the harmonica. She kisses him on the cheek and he blushes to the roots of his hair every single time.  
  
Then he visits his elderly folks who ask after Steve because they like him better. Bucky thinks it’s because Steve is grouchy like an old man.  
  
He goes to the art studio and mixes paints for the Italian who runs it, then goes through little Italy transporting letters and newspapers.  
  
Once they give him some perfume oils and trinkets for his work, he disappears off to the red light district to charm pennies from the working girls. He makes sure to give Steve’s favourite girl, a cabaret singer with eyes darker than the night sky, a kiss on the hand.  
  
Then he goes back to Steve’s, tell him he kissed his girl, and cackles as Steve yells at him from his window while Bucky flees to the streets. He goes home, makes Becca dinner while his ma is helping Sarah with Steve so she can go to work, and heads out to finish his route.  
  
He checks on his gutter kids, endures the suspicion from the new ones, let’s the older ones drag him around. He goes to the docks to pick his people up and see them home, then he pops by Steve’s to say goodnight and walk his mom home.  
  
It’s a good life. People don’t care much that he’s strange, lately.

______

  
Home doesn’t always feel like home. Bucky wants to leave, sometimes. He wants to curl up in Steve’s bed, listening to Sarah and his ma talk in the kitchen while sharing a cigarette. He doesn’t want...this.  
  
His ma is out, and Charles is posturing to Becca. She’s barely 7, but she postures right back, growling all high pitch in the back of her throat.  
  
Charles smells smug. Bucky hates him.  
  
“You’re a sissy, boy. A Beta bitch, maybe, not a Redline.”  
  
Bucky ignores him and his struggles with his masculinity, focusing on cooking the eggs he’d wheedled out of the baker by the waterfront. Charles chuckles. It sounds pitying.  
  
“Maybe your father lied to your mom all these years. Probably wasn’t an Alpha at all - not if he produced you.”  
  
Bucky leaves after dinner, ignoring Charles shoving his shoulders down at the door and yanking his hair. He sleeps in Steve’s bed, listens to his mom and Sarah share a secret and secrets, and wishes this was where he lived.

______  


“C’mon boy.”

The Dumont pack chants, shoving Bucky into his stepfather again,

“C’mon boy, show us what you’re made of.”

Bucky had always thought adults didn’t care about kids, not like they should. Always thought they were too invested in protecting them and not invested enough in getting to know them. He’d been changing his mind lately, but this was changing it right back.

He hunched his shoulders against another push. He resisted the movement and the crowd crowed.

There was a knife in his pocket he kept fiddling with.

Another push. More laughter. Charles’ voice, hissing below all the other voices:

“Sissy.”

Was Bucky a sissy? He had a knife in his pocket. He had a knife in his pocket and he’d punched out a girl twice his size when he first presented. Was he a sissy?

Charles poked a bony finger against his forehead.  


Bucky thinks about how his mama is strange and how he doesn’t want Charles to leave her, how he doesn’t want anyone to judge her like they used to. He thinks about how Steve insisted hurting people was wrong when it felt good (“ _Ya gotta feel bad if someone cries, otherwise it’s like bullyin’. If yer strong and ya hurt people, what’s it worth?_ ”). He thinks of how disappointed Angus would be if he just-

______  


Early the next morning, Bucky is pacing his route to shake out some tension. Nobody expects him out in the wee hours before dawn.

Not even the half-feral kid he’s been trying to convince to join the gutter brats. This one roams alone, but approached Bucky easily enough.

Apparently Bucky wasn’t the only one out early - he could see his step-father ahead. So could his half-feral kid, lurking by the tree line, snuffling at the air.

She approached Charles ( _did he smell like Bucky and Winifred?_ ). He yelps, startled, as she clings to his arm. She reeks of hunger.

He throws her off, smelling nervous as all Hell.

It’s an accident. Just a nervous reaction, but Bucky’s instincts won’t see reason ( _was he a sissy? **No,** and this was gonna prove it-)_. They grip Bucky by the throat and pull him, focused and dead to the world around him, to follow Charles silently. He stalks him through the shadows all the way to the paper processing plant he worked at.

It’s only under the factory lights that Charles spots him, a knife gleaming in his hand.

______

  
“Where are you going!? What’s that - that suitcase-“

“I’m leaving you! I’m leaving this madhouse - your son is a FREAK, Winifred!”

Doors slam. Bucky’s mother cries. Pounding footsteps race up to his door, voices come from the kitchen, and lighter footsteps leave again.

Steve kicks Charles viciously in the shins before he can leave the boroughs, but it doesn’t change the fact that Sarah and Winifred are pale-faced and upset. Doesn’t make Becca stop crying.

Bucky’s face is eerily blank. Steve can’t get him to smile.

______  


There are flowers on Bucky’s doorstep from the roadside (t _he sparse white kind that could survive concrete and industrial pollution_ ). They mean apologies to Bucky’s kids. He sets them on fire, wiping angry tears from his eyes. None of his kids had anything to he sorry about.

______

  
There’s a knock at the door, soft as a whisper, and Bucky doesn’t know anyone who would show up here at 3 am. He grabs a baseball bat and sneaks up to the door, taking a whiff to see who it is.  
  
Kids. All neutral and...a new Beta scent.  
  
He pulls the door open and blinks at his gutter brats, all of whine are gathered around a shivering Beta, one of his newbies. Huh, he guesses they’ve finally presented.  
  
There’s a whisper of a bond between them and Bucky resolves to make it stronger. This kid is his pack now.  
  
Heck, he’s gonna need to make some more cash. He’s gonna have to get a job.

______  


When Bucky's 14 he joins Angus at the docks. Them forming a bond was inevitable anyway. He's worried about it, but at least now he's flush for a 14 year old.

_____  


Weak Alpha. Bucky had no clue who exactly administered Steve’s assignment test, a birthday gift for his fourteenth, but they were clearly an idiot. The only thing weak about Steve was his messed up nose, not his goddamn pheromones.

Ugh, his pheromones. Bucky didn’t appreciate getting constantly slapped in the face with fight. He knew Steve was a righteous fury kind of brat, but REALLY? Steve’s impact was as massive as his attitude ( _“Little Alpha,” he teases, smooshing Steve’s nose with his thumb as the scrap of fury tried to bite him, “With a big ol’ voice.”_ ).

They’d been tussling by the brothel their ma’s kept saying wasn’t a brothel ( _it was, Angus said so. Real swanky joint, too, apparently. The ladies there flicked Bucky on the nose whenever he tried to charm their tips out of them, though, said he was too old for the cute kid act now_ ). Some rude John was hanging around behind the building and his voice was just loud enough to carry. The ladies dealt with their own problems, hated when people got in the way ( _Bucky got his ears boxed last time and they still smarted_ ), but this man just kept going.

Said something about the women not being worth his money. Said something about service for free. Insisted he was owed something fresh and young, not used and old.  


Those were filthy words - you didn’t say shit like that here. Not in the Brooklyn boroughs where Bucky kept a careful eye out, not in America where people knew how little power young ones had, how easily manipulated they were.

It was a terrible crime to push your disgusting feelings on them.

Steve went ballistic. His anger was like a punch to the gut, making Bucky’s nose itch and his head swim even as his fists clenched ( _he’d had a plan- ugh, what was it-_ ). Steve’s stupid goddamn impact pissed off the John worse, pissed off the lady he’d been insulting, and everyone within a block-wide radius.

The resulting brawl had been FANTASTIC (t _hat man was NEVER coming back_ ) and a disaster of epic proportions. The entryway to the brothel was wrecked and Steve had bitten clean through his own lip. He was such a bloody mess that BUCKY, still new to Steve’s shouty scent, went ballistic. Carried him home, knocked over some old ladies by accident, damn near brained himself on Steve’s front door.

As it turned out, Steve’s fight scent was extremely effective and long-ranged. Awful.

Bucky literally measured it ( _his mathematics teacher had busted a gut over the calculations he’d done looking at the spreading rate and dissipation. Bucky made sure the cafeteria lady spat in his afternoon coffee_ ).

It’s the start of Bucky’s latest pain in the ass. The only other person who is willing to listen to him complain about it is Sarah.

“Little jerk bends everyone out of shape when he’s mad, but doesn’t have the sense to feel bad for it and can’t smell well enough to know when he’s balled up! He never apologizes! Half the beef he starts never even needed to start in the first place!”

He tells, stomping around her apartment and tearing into her homemade poppy seed loaf.

“This is delicious!”

He says, equally angry, and Sarah laughs so hard she cries ( _and then coughs, takes a wheezy breath, and Bucky fusses over her until she slaps his hands away and points angrily at her scrubs, arching an eyebrow as if to ask, “Who here is a nurse?”)_.

Bucky loves to Steve to death - he’s constantly defending Bucky’s people when Bucky can’t be there, is always ready with his fists to defend more philosophical concepts, too ( _Bucky never should’ve introduced him to the city librarian. According to Sarah, Steve read about philosophy and art a lot in the hospital, but Bucky is dead certain the librarian made it worse. That little Omega always smelled smug, like she knew she was ruining Bucky’s life by giving Steve 10 more reasons to fight a day_ ). He’s a tiny ball of rage and justice and Bucky wouldn’t trade him for the world.

But by GOD he wished Steve cared that people hated him ( _Steve, Steve no, Steve WHY-_ ).

It doesn’t take long ( _just over a month_ ) for Steve to stake a claim on Bucky, doesn’t even take a thought for Bucky to accept it. It’s...a little bit lopsided. Steve’s claim is a lot weaker than Bucky’s, something Bucky hadn’t even known was possible. People joke about them being mates for a bit though it’s blatantly a platonic bond. They joke because they don’t wanna see what Winifred and Sarah clearly can - what they’ve seen since long before Steve presented.

Steve is Bucky’s Prime. He’s always been Bucky’s leader, even when he was following Bucky around, but now it’s official and engrained in pack. The few people who stick around Bucky ( _Angus and his Neighbours once Bucky finally turns 14 and can join them, finally getting over his self-imposed exile. The elderly outcasts that Bucky constantly works to keep, harder and harder now that he’s older and can make them feel more than a whisper of connection. Some of his street kids now that they were grown. His little sister now that she’s finally gone Alpha_ ) by tight bonds accept Steve, but they are the exception and not the rule.

Things get a little weird for awhile after the claim. People don’t believe it, though all the evidence is there ( _Steve’s scent is all over Bucky, Bucky’s is all over Steve, and their behavior blatantly screams “Mine!” For all to see_ ). They cozy up to Bucky. They cozy up to Steve.

It causes EVEN MORE fights. Ridiculous. Bucky doesn’t eat enough to support this kind of energy expenditure. He has to start calling in support, but he’s mostly bound to adults who are running a huge risk of getting arrested when Steve’s fight scent makes them punch a teenager.

Steve snares two of the younger Neighbors with his over-the-top passion when they all manage to sneak in through the back of a theatre for a show ( _an artsy piece Bucky hadn’t come remotely close to understanding_ ). They get kicked out because everyone can pick up Steve’s shouty excitement, but Angelo and Donna are smelling all kinds of fine with that _(looking at Steve with new eyes_ ).

They can’t suck up to Steve with scent, the nose-blind booger that he is, so they try to impress him. Bucky may or may not maintain his place as Second by upstaging them. Not obviously, of course. They’re his people and besides, Bucky was raised real polite.

He just makes a point of being better than them at everything. Constantly. He picks up a lot of new skills that summer - his ma had to teach him to crochet through constant giggle fits and rinsing bloodstains from yarn. His gutter brats get some scarves out of it, so Bucky considers it time well spent ( _he MAY also be a bit smug Angelo and Donna never noticed a thing, though Angus and his boyfriend roll their eyes and shove Bucky into the frog pond_ ).

______

  
Eventually, Steve gets hospitalized because of COURSE he does ( _his swiss-cheese lungs don’t want to support all the yelling he does_ ). Bucky fusses and fusses and fusses until Sarah and Steve kick him out. The Neighbours get to stay, though. Steve hasn’t bonded ANY of them. It isn’t fair.

Growling to himself, Bucky bitterly wanders the streets and refuses to go home at night. He hangs around his gutter kids and snaps at anyone who comes close. Gets real cagey when people eye him funny from a distance, too.

Angus has to bring him something to eat, rolling his eyes when Bucky glowers at him for petting Yuki, the angriest child he had ( _Yuki’s got no papers - has both boy and girl parts, something you can’t even register as, not that the stuffed shirts at the station cared. Officers came for Yuki once a month, and Bucky had made a dick’s life Hell for several days straight after the last time. Him and Yuki had destroyed the man’s lawn, smashed his windows, sent some of the roving gangs of vagrants to go piss on his rose bushes. It had been a good time, at least until some officers had snatched Yuki out from under Bucky’s nose. He got them back, but it solidified the idea that NO ONE was allowed to touch Yuki_ ). He scruffs Bucky, shoves bread in his mouth, and stares him down until he chews and swallows.

Yuki laughs. Ungrateful punk.

The red-haired Omega was the only one who can make Bucky unwind for awhile ( _his nose tucked into Angus’ neck, breathing in the barely there marks from his mother and sister and the dock Omegas_ ). Bucky wishes Angus and Steve would get closer, but Steve isn’t interested.

( _“I think he hasn’t forgiven me for not being bound tighter to his mother.” Angus sighs, “And I don’t know if he’s capable of creating more bonds, judging by his claim. You and her mom are probably all his body can handle, just like how Sarah can’t seem to handle much pack right now.” Winifred sighs from the doorway, worried gaze skimming over her son’s pout, the longing look he shoots outside where a big pack of teens is playing in the streets_ )

When Bucky checks in at home, Becca won’t talk to him. The girls on the block won’t stop making fun of her about Bucky - they say he’s just as violent as his father, that he was going to have an incident over Steve ( _a real funny change from being a sissy boy and a pushover_ ). She stops Bucky as he tries to leave in the morning, tears in her eyes, and begs him to treat Steve ‘normally’.

“Don’t let 'im lead you around by the nose, Buck!”

She pleads, as if she didn’t used to follow Steve around, too ( _as if he didn’t paint her pictures of unicorns, teach her how to ride a bike, get in a fight with someone who said Becca was a bug-eyed Betty-_ ).

“Just let 'im be a satellite member of the pack - ya don’t gotta lose 'im!”

She says, as if that’s an acceptable alternative. If Bucky leaves Steve alone, Steve will get himself killed. Besides, Bucky doesn’t WANT anyone else. Steve gets him. Steve’s good. Steve’s his prime.

“He’s the reason Daddy left!”

She finally bursts out, sobbing and furious and-

( _Charles had never liked Bucky, had exposed what was wrong with him, had made his mother seem strange to people again, was a threat to Becca-_ )

( _Was a threat to Steve. Becca was a threat to Steve_ )

And Bucky suddenly feels nothing about her. Emptiness where their fledgling bond had been.

Their bond has severed.

Becca’s eyes go wide and she opens her mouth, but only a sputtering sound leaves it. Bucky shuts the door in her face.

When Bucky’s finally allowed back into the hospital, he makes a resolution. He’s not dragging Steve out of anything he starts unless absolutely necessary. He’s already non-aggressive, but now he’s going to dedicate himself even further to charming his way out of fights - teaching Steve ( _a lost cause_ ) how to get at least ONE PERSON who isn’t Bucky to like him.

There’s no way Bucky can hide how strange he is, but no one else is gonna get to see what’s wrong with him. No one is gonna get to use it as an excuse to hurt Steve.

Hysterically, Bucky’s newfound passivity works towards getting Steves ass kicked less often, but not how he expected it to. At 17, Bucky is tall and lean, his only scary trait is being a Redline. His irritation, the barely there fight scent Steve managed to drag out of him, were expected from him and not that intimidating ( _unless he got really pissed - people disappeared nice and quick then. It took a lot to get him there, these days. He was used to seeing Steve spitting blood and curses_ ).

People weren’t used to him smelling amused as Steve kicked a man twice his size in the shins. They weren’t used to him aiming a bright smile at them, calling out advice to Steve about how to be less of a jerk.

A claimed Redline following around a Weak Alpha and giving him social advice was apparently the most terrifying sight anyone had ever seen.

Steve gets hospitalized again. Bucky works out all of his aggression ghosting after a new group of half-feral kids sneaking around in the boroughs ( _hidden away in the Italian section of town, kept safe by people who still believed it was a citizen duty to interact with damaged children enough that they could learn to socialize before presentation. Steve had made some kind of blood promise with a man Bucky was certain ran with Sicilian gangs - something about saving his son that Bucky did NOT want to hear because it ended with Steve and a fractured arm - so they were both welcome there at all hours of the night_ ). A woman tries to take a kid home, uses a heavy-hand of soothing calm that’s unnatural, that isn’t reflected in her face.

Filth needs to stop walking around in Bucky’s city. They need to learn people won’t breathe a word of anything...bad that befalls filth.

( _You don’t mess with anybody too young to present within the entirety of the Brooklyn borough or Bucky Barnes will show up in your bedroom and threaten to carve off a part off of you_ )

( ** _He means it, too_** )

She’s missing a finger the next day, leaving town for good. Bucky cleans his knife at the Sicilian’s house, gets a new one ( _with a deep trough running down the center and an ornate handle. It looks ceremonial and smells a bit like Steve. Bucky hates blood promises_ ), and feels a whisper of interest rolling off the older Alpha.

“I’m not looking for pack. I have enough.”

He says, flat as can be, and grits his teeth when the Sicilian (“ _Call me Renalto, please.”_ ) laughs. He stands strong through the too-hard slap on the back and the swipe of possessive scent pushed between his shoulder blades.

“You need more people to hold tight.”

The Sicilian says, accent thick and lapsing into some Italian words that just FEEL like an insult,

“You want to care for someone - keeping people loose doesn’t work for you.”

Bucky barely resists the urge to growl at him ( _like he knew about Bucky’s bonds. Angus and the others are his core pack, held tightly to him, no matter how it looked from the outside. Besides, Redlines were supposed to have a core pack and a loose one, anyway_ ).

“It’s supposed to.”

He tells the Sicilian, who raises a sarcastic brow.

“Every king has a different castle.”

The Sicilian says, waving a hand as if to sweep away Bucky’s concern,

“But they all have advisors. Many advisors. You and your boy king need some.”

Bucky leaves in a huff (t _hinking the man was trying to catch them out for being weird, mocking them_ ). He makes sure not to slam the door behind him, though - he was raised more politely than that.

( _He clambers through Angus’ window, scaring the life out of him and his boyfriend. “The Neighbors kinda raised me.” He mumbles in way of explanation, unusually awkward and avoiding eye contact with the Beta who was slowly approaching him as Angus gasped for breath, “So you guys can raise other kids, too, yeah? ‘M not made out of eyes-“ “Hun, we been waitin’ for ya t’ stop bullyin’ us outta doin’ ‘xactly that.” The Beta snorts_ )

( _His gutter kids aren’t happy with non-Bucky supervision, but at least now someone will teach them how to read. And how to chomp on anyone who tried to make off with them_ )

He winds up back at the Sicilian’s house ( _“Barnes, really, I have a name. Why do people think you’re a charmer? So rude.”_ ) several more times after Sarah gets sick and Steve can’t stand the sight of him. Can’t stand the other scents rubbed into Bucky’s skin or the worry he projects ( _that’s what he says, but Bucky isn’t stupid. Steve’s sadness and fear threaten to drown him and he can tell Steve is just trying not to put him under_ ).

There are loan officers, suspicious packs, all kinds of shifty bastards ready to take advantage of a near packless woman, sick and poor and dy-

And vulnerable. Just...just vulnerable.

Bucky’s usually understanding - the recession was hard. People were poor and hungry. Did all kinds of unspeakable things for pack - did the things all packs do under enough stress.

But even THINKING about stressing Steve when his mom was sick with TB, something she could easily kill him with, too?

That’s unforgivable.

Bucky isn’t what people expect in those weeks. He would’ve thought they’d be used to that by now, but it seems he’s always got a surprise in store for them. He doesn’t attack anyone - not that anyone can prove.

The Sicilian teaches him how to be...more. More of what he already was (more of what was wrong with him). He lets Bucky be patient, grins toothily and whispers,

“It doesn’t make you less Red, son. You’re a science sucker, aren’t you? Heard all kinds of gossip about you from Federico’s garage.”

He swipes a possessive streak between Bucky’s shoulder blades,

“Carbon is carbon, whether it’s ash or a diamond. You’re Red, son. Redder than anything - the sharp point of a diamond.”

He’s one of Bucky’s people by the time Bucky is sneaking off down the street, patiently following a loan shark home ( _ruining his life bit by bit. Taking his time, shredding his papers, slashing his tires and his brake lines-_ ).

People screw off after that.

They screw off ever further when Sarah finally breathes her last, two days after Steve’s 16th.


	4. Why Do They Call a Private a Private?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> World War Two comes knock knockin' on America's door. 
> 
> TW for use of a slur and mentions of racism rampant at the time, as well as mentions of some of the worst events leading up to US entry into the war. This bit is told through Bucky and Steve's perspective, so it isn't entirely accurate tensions at the time (as I try to make at least somewhat clear), though it's still pretty on-point. There are minor changes to historical events to fit within this universe - the oppression of women here is far less than it ACTUALLY was in this era and pack mentality is a thing.

By the time Sarah Rogers dies, the Depression is finally beginning to ease its way out of the United States. Of course, most everyone had lost their savings during it, so the economy's first signs of recovery mean nothing in the boroughs.   
  
They're all still poor.   
  
Steve has funeral expenses - the Neighbours raise money, but it's not like they're rolling in dough. Steve has rent to pay, too.   
  
Winifred and Bucky fuss together about making room for Steve in their apartment. Winifred's hands are scarlet and cracked from her new job dying fabric _(they shake as she counts what little cash they have_ ), and Bucky can't help but wince at the sight of them. It gets him whacked over the head with a wooden spoon, so clearly his mother is still in fighting form.   
  
Becca doesn't agree, though. She snaps at Bucky, hides away her mother's money, and sits herself in the space he's been trying to clear in their shared room. Becca's only 12, but in that moment Bucky hates her.   
  
He **hates** her.   
  
His mother tries to reason with her. All their arguing does is alert their neighbours to the fact that they're having problems. All that does is reaffirm old opinions that the Barnes' are a bit off, though Bucky has managed to make a name for himself.   
  
It makes more stress lines appear on his mother's face, however Winifred keep right on arguing. She would've tried to convince her daughter for months if Bucky hadn't've moved out.   
  
If Steve can't move in with him, he'll move in with Steve. Simple.   
  
It's not simple, of course, and Bucky barely makes enough to help his mom out from the docks. So he picks up a second job as an auto mechanic. He still works the docks since auto work is sparse, despite making more money. Still...he kind of loves it ( _he misses high school. He misses math and science, he misses the adults he could pester into teaching him languages after hours. Steve had learned more than him since he was the old immigrants favourite and had a better ear for it than Bucky, making learning by conversation and arguments simpler than Bucky’s required classes_ ).

Steve picks up work he can do indoors. He’s a cartoonist, does propaganda and comics and the like. Bucky doesn't understand half the commission requests Steve keeps pinned to the wall.

Half the time he just works as a colourist and Bucky thinks it’s hilarious. Steve complains that he knows the colour wheel and it ain’t that funny, but all Bucky can squeeze out between guffaws is:  
  
“An’ they all look the same t' ya! Congrats, Stevie, ya know what a circle is!”

Steve's work pays pennies and he refuses to draw for racist signs or other commissions he despises ( _got worked up enough once to punch a client_ ). They barely squeak by ( _Winifred comes by and drops off food. Bucky takes it and doesn’t tell Steve where it’s from - Steve knows about Becca and took it...well, he took it pretty well. Didn’t blame her. Decided to stay well away from her and to stop bothering Bucky’s family. Bucky would’ve preferred it if Steve got mad like he usually did about injustice_ ).

Sometimes the Neighbours cover their rent and two of Bucky’s presented kids works like crazy to make sure the rest don’t starve when Bucky can hardly afford to feed himself.

He watches over them when they filch food and doesn’t feel the slightest bit guilty when the baker worriedly goes over his bills ( _Steve does, though. He pays the man back with his jaw set and ready to take a punch. It means Bucky and Steve don’t eat that night or the next, and Bucky starts keeping a few things secret_ ).

Steve starts drawing for the local newspaper, just little things, but it gets him an ear for the first grumbling of unrest in Europe. There’s a furrow between his brows more often that not. He spends long hours at the Sicilian’s place, asking about Italy, asking about the German economy’s collapse, his strategic mind beginning to put something together that Bucky didn’t want to see ( _he sees enough already in the way the Sicilian's men, the ones who jokingly call him Red Diamond, look when they say the word 'Gestapo'_ ).

Steve refuses more and more commissions. People have got some nasty opinions about immigrants and are taking advantage of global unrest to vent them. It gets Steve known as an ornery bastard, earns him a few fights, and has Bucky gritting his teeth. Neither him or Steve can afford to get arrested.

“They wanted me t',”  
  
Steve slams his hand on the table and gestures angrily at a slip of paper,  
  
“To jus' INSULT Jesse Owens! He won the dash - there ain’t no reason to draw ‘im like that- t'...t' cheapen his victory! It’s the Olympics, Buck, but they wanna draw a black man like a monkey t' celebrate!”  
  
And then another time...

“A hangin'.”  
  
Steve laughs, low and bitter,  
  
“The last public execution in America The Free.”  
  
He balls up the commission letter and tries to breathe through the tears of frustration in his eyes.  
  
“They offered me another job if I take thissun.”  
  
Steve said. He’s avoiding Bucky’s eyes. Bucky sighs and pushes off the wall he’s been leaning against to hold Steve close,  
  
“I don’t blame ya for not takin’ it.”  
  
Bucky murmurs in his ear,  
  
“S’alright Stevie, yer a good man.”  
  
And again...

“‘M not gonna draw Germany dancin’ in money for not payin’ more reparations. The country’s poor - ‘s dirt poor. War shouldn’ta been paid for like that.”  
  
Steve muttered, head in his hands, and Bucky simply clasped his shoulder. He wasn’t going to keep letting Steve drown in guilt over this.

One of them was going to take a job they didn’t like.

And the one who could live with that was Bucky.

_______

Mysterious boons had kept Bucky’s family afloat during the peak of the Depression. He'd ignored them while he could because he didn't like the implications, however they needed to be paid eventually. He'd pay them now if it'd earn him a smidge more cash to take home to Stevie and the pack.

He goes to talk to the Sicilian.

The old Italian section of town was tense nowadays. They didn’t like the news any more than Steve did - saw something coming with even more clarity.

Bucky walks their streets and receives sharp nods from the men and women in the coffee shops, the teens on the porches, the elderly folks watching the children. They probably know why he’s here. Steve was well-liked amongst them ( _he’d learned the language well before Bucky and had devoured old Italian classics and Venetian law books like they were nothing. It also helped that he liked Italian Renaissance art - made them call him 'cherub' for awhile_ ). They’d definitely heard of the reputation he was developing.

Bucky doesn’t knock on the Sicilian’s door. Instead he picks the lock, slips inside, and silently makes his way to the bedroom by measuring his breathing in perfect time with the creaks of the house.

“Even if you’re sneaky,”  
  
The Sicilian chuckled from the kitchen,  
  
“I can still smell you, Red.”

“Jus’ makin’ sure ya haven’t gone nose-blind in yer old age, Grandpa Italy.”

The Sicilian grumbles, just as he has for years, his name. Bucky’s never gonna use it at this rate ( _too much power in not doing it_ ). 

“You’re finally looking for more people, aren’t you? Making your pack a bit bigger?”  
  
The Sicilian asks. His brows are arched in mock-curiousity that has Bucky resisting the urge to make a rude gesture.

"Gotta share the burden somehow.”  
  
He replies, refusing to play along ( _they both knew him and the Sicilian belonged to each other and had for awhile now_ ). 

There’s silence between them as the Sicilian pours a glass of grappa and passes it over. Bucky’s eye twitches in annoyance ( _he hates grappa_ ), but he sips anyway.

“Welcome to the gang, Red.”  
  
The Sicilian grins,  
  
“There was blood in that, by the way. For the promise.”

Bucky doesn’t spit it out, but it’s a near thing ( _it doesn't taste like blood, but this old man was always doing crazy things. He couldn't be sure_ ). The Sicilian's grin widens, going from 'innocent old man' to 'wolf' between blinks. 

“Oh yes,"  
  
He says in English, then switches to Italian with an amused lilt,  
  
"You’re going to fit right in.”

_______

Working for the Sicilian isn’t really all that different from what Bucky usually does. Except that instead of waiting for people to make mistakes in front of him or his people, he now strikes first. There's a list of undesirables that need to be strong-armed before they actually DO something he doesn't like.

Also, he finally has permission to guard Dot’s brothel, straight from the mouth of the woman herself. She says if he can be a gangster, he’s enough of a man to be allowed near prostitutes ( _whenever he'd tried to help before, his ears had been boxed, he'd been teased mercilessly, and his mother had always ALWAYS been told. He was still nervous that was going to happen, to be honest_ ). She pays handsomely.  
  
Too handsomely ( _even for the side jobs he takes from her...he's always had an excellent mouth_ ).

He uses half of it to take her girls out dancing, whittling away his pay until it’s something less suspicious to bring home to Steve.

It lets Steve think he’s just being a flirt instead of something worse.

_______

“There’s a dictator in Italy and a budding one in Germany.”  
  
Steve scowls as they do their rounds,  
  
“Political tensions with Japan are getting worse and the US government is doing NOTHING. There are people here screaming for liberty for their families!”

Bucky feels a frisson of fear roll up his spine and cuts a look at the sign at the theatre for some newsreel ( _it seemed like there was a new one every month_ ).

“No labour strikes, no opposition, no safety for the people of Italy. He separates PACKS.”  
  
Steve ranted,  
  
“And we claim to stand for democracy. The world claims to stand for it, but where are we when people are fleeing their countries?”

“Bouncing back from poverty, Stevie.”  
  
Bucky growls, wrapping an arm around Steve’s shoulders and pulling him firmly into his side ( _trying to choke down his rising anxiety_ ),  
  
“Let Europe have its problems while we sort out ours, eh?”

“It’s a police state, Buck!”  
  
Steve shouted, shoving at him, but Bucky held on tight.  
  
“An' we barely have an army, Steve. We aren’t the only people in the world who can help.”  
  
He responds shortly. Steve is still struggling in his arms ( _sometimes...no, often, often lately Bucky dreamed that Steve struggled in his hold and then slipped free. He'd run and run and get shot in the streets-_ ). 

“He calls people mongrels - half-breeds! The Nazis do the same, there’s been news from Japan-“  
  
Steve is still arguing.

“Steve.”  
  
Bucky says, letting go of his shoulders to grab his face instead, scent gone placating and sympathetic in the face of Steve’s fury,  
  
“Support the people who make it here. Not goin’ overseas to start a war doesn’t mean approval. We jus' can’t afford t' fight outside our borders.”

He thinks of the Sicilian, sobbing into his hands because of news from home ( _rising from the table and throwing his wine glass against the wall. It spattered like blood, stained like it too, and Bucky felt sick_ ), but staying exactly where he is. Organizing men and women from afar, sneaking them away to avoid mass slaughter ( _telling Bucky fiercely that he won’t risk people for pride or morals. His ethics, and God how he sneered when he spat the word, wont be the cross they die on. He rather be known as a coward than be a mourner at yet another mass grave_ ).

Bucky suspects the cost of war is high and they can’t afford it.

But it feels like there’s a guillotine overhead - one that he’s not sure they can ignore

_______

  
Newsreels in the theatres become more common. Conflict in Europe grows, and the whispers from across the Pacific turn into screams.

Something terrible happens in China. Steve heads out into the boroughs, Bucky in tow, and guards the houses of the dozens of Japanese-Americans they know in its wake until the Sicilian’s men arrive ( _all black suited and armed to the teeth. They scare the Japanese people who know nothing of New York’s gangs, and Bucky wants to apologize to them, but doesn’t know how in the face of what’s happened_ ).

Then they both head to Chinatown to pay their respects. It’s silent there, except for the distant sound of crying. It’s always distant - anyone who meets their gazes lifts their chin in defiance and dries their tears.

They know where Bucky and Steve have been ( _again, Bucky wants to apologize, though he doesn’t have the words for it. He doesn’t think there are any. Doesn’t think this is a tragedy they can share_ ).

Bucky suspects the price of war is high and they can’t afford it, but the US metal industry takes off anyway, feeding a machine while claiming neutrality as the American public watches something horrible like a movie.

The whispers from Europe grow louder and louder until Bucky returns home to his mother, clutches her hand and walks with her to Angus’ synagogue.

There are hard lines on the Rabbi’s face. He says his people are used to persecution.

When he cries, his tears are furious.

Angus clutches his mother’s hand ( _his own are so much thinner than Bucky remembers - he'd worked with Angus yesterday and had only seen a vibrant Omega, keeping all his packmates working in sync with a smile on his face. Now he wondered at the edge of sadness he had caught on the wind_ ) and bows his head.

“Winifred,”  
  
He rasps, and something in Bucky burns ( _he’s practically been heading Angus’ pack with Steve, but he hasn’t brought his own mother around for so long. She’s one of the Omega’s oldest friends, one of the strongest people Bucky knows - he’s been an absolute fool_ ),  
  
“There’s nowhere in the world they can go.”

Angus’ scent is heavy. Bucky breathes it in and feels an emptiness inside of himself. He feels a sense of doom hiding at its edges, waiting for him to acknowledge it so it can swallow him whole.

“There’s nowhere,”  
  
Angus says again, burying his face in Winifred’s neck and clutching her dress with fingers that tear at the fabric,  
  
“There’s nowhere they can go.”

Bucky suspects the price of war is high. He thinks they can’t afford it. But he wonders if they can avoid it - if they should.

He wonders about people who have nowhere to run ( _thinks of his gutter brats and the old folks and the homeless people who wander through his territory. They’ve got nowhere to go. No one to watch over them without him_ ).

He's scared ( _he feels his heart tear in two_ ).

_______

America watches, angry yet distant, and doesn’t move when a war begins.

The UK is shelled and people worry for their pack members there, gossip about that, but they don’t seem to quite believe what’s happening in Germany ( _don’t seem to believe the people in the synagogues with grim knowing faces_ ). They don’t even glance at what’s happening in China as Japan’s army marches on the Pacific without regard for pack, age, or surrender. Those who lose their battles forfeit their rights in the worst of ways ( _Steve interrupts a newsreel to snarl at the audience, clawing at the seats as him and Bucky and dragged away from the fight that’s stirring_ ).

Steve stops taking propaganda commissions entirely. He starts writing news pamphlets, starts spending more and more time in the poor immigrant sections of town, and Bucky stands beside him as he listens to hundreds of painful stories.

There’s a black women’s coalition in Brooklyn that starts giving Steve pointers for his work, teeth gritted and hands worked to the bone. They argue for intervention, they argue for cutting trade, for increasing supply lines to the allies. They send donations and letters to beg the US government to take refugees.

They take Steve’s work eventually and publish it too, hoping people will listen to a white man at least, willing to take anything it meant they could save another human life.

But Steve’s an Irish-American and Bucky’s no different. They don’t know the kinds of people who could make a difference ( _don't know that they are making one - don't know that sanctions have come into effect, that the Flying Tigers have already been mobilized, don't know anything about the barked orders in Washington or the phone calls passing between countries_ ).

There’s a fear in Bucky that grows stronger by the day. The American military is small and they aren’t mighty. And Bucky knows that when war comes, they won’t just be recruiting.

His mother never wanted him to be a soldier.

_______

Bucky’s people need him at home. They NEED him like he needs them. **They’re pack**.

And those that aren’t are desperate for support.

But something has to give. Oh God, something has to give.

( _People run, but there’s nowhere they can go that a spreading battlefield won’t find them_ )

Bucky’s sick of losing things. He doesn’t want to go. There's a war coming and he doesn't want to go.

_______

America watches, eyes wide with horror as they rebuilt their economy half on the back of a war machine. It watches, lights in its harbours bright, and most of its people fail to comprehend what’s really going on in the rest of the world.

A struggle for power, they call it. Like it’s something they can ignore. An internal squabble. 

Oppressed voices in America call out for their brothers and sisters, for America to take in the hungry and the poor and the sick. They sign up for the military and wait. Some of them flee to Britain to slip in amongst their spies and troops ( _realizing there that the cogs have already begun to turn, but are weighed down by bureaucracy and a public that desperately wants the world to be a better place_ ).

In the UK, the code-breaking division containing Peggy Carter ( _a woman who is already making waves_ ) gets the news that Japan is planning an attack on the US. There’s no definitive location, but the news is passed on in hopes that it will give them time to prepare. Churchill pens a letter himself, though that won't arrive until later.

All the boats and planes are still in Pearl Harbour when it’s bombed. Nothing was even moved.

There’s anger, after that. More than before - more real, more present, more powerful. Pack is important in the States. People are. Especially in the military - the packs there are the closest and grieve the deepest. The loss of even one service member is seen as a grievous crime against the country and a reason to fight harder than ever.

But there’s still fear. The Depression had barely ended and the military’s budget had suffered heavily. There weren’t many people trained or willing to fight ( _a black division waits and is ignored. The black women’s coalition has inspired people to question their lives as half-citizens, starting the first whispers of James Thompson’s letter and the Double V campaign that speaks the loudest for FREEDOM overseas and at home. They are ignored. A group of Japanese-Americans have been trying to gather new soldiers, Irish immigrants surrender their savings to military drives, the drag scene gathers in a club and counts supplies for donation, gay men and women clutch at army drab that rejects their very existence, and the Jewish population SCREAMS for justice - they are ignored_ ).  
  
America still wants the world to be a better place. It wants it so badly - to put the Depression behind them and the horrors of the First World War. The populace and the government wants to hold tight to what it has ( _freedom within its borders, or what it claims is freedom. Freedom for a few, freedom for a moment in time_ ).

The lights in Manhattan shine bright until merchant ships are sunk one by one by foreign U-boats.

The city goes dark. And from within the blackness, Bucky mouths the announcement he had known was coming:

“The United States has declared war.”

_______

  
“Beta? Omega? The US armed forces need more of YOU!”

There was a bootprint square in the middle of the leaflet blowing through the street. Bucky picked it up and tried to dust it off.

The print stayed firmly stuck, so he just dropped it. Another leaflet was stuck to its back.

“Redlines! Receive your FREE stress evaluation TODAY and JOIN OUR TROOPS!”

Was emblazoned over an image of a pair of massive muscular men and women, clothed all in dress blues with a faceless pack behind them.

He crumpled the advertisement in his hand and went on his way.

_______

  
“You there! How’d you like to kill a Jap!”  
  
Called a Boston accented voice from a recruiting booth. Bucky stopped dead in his tracks, two of his presented kids at his back and a toddler in his arms. He turned slowly to pin the recruiter with his absolute coldest smile

“I’m a Redline. I’m not safe enough to go to war.”

The recruiter swallowed drily, then put on his game face ( _glancing repeatedly at the toddler sucking on Bucky’s thumb_ ),

“I dunno son, have you been tested yet? You haven’t lost your chance to kill-“

The scent of Bucky’s anger slammed the man and he visibly paled. Yuki ducked out from just behind Bucky to pin him with their own ferocious look ( _Omega rage blending seamlessly with Bucky’s peppery scent, stopping a lot of the locals and turning their heads_ ).

“We don’t use that word here.”  
  
Bucky hissed. When he left, he could already hear the beginnings of a fight and Sunshine, his other brat, was missing. Bucky clenched his fists and kept walking - he had to make it to work.

( _He picks Sunshine up from a cell later, snarling at the dick who’d dragged her in. Her wrists are rubbed raw from the cuffs - this asshole’s cruiser was gonna be ruined by midnight, so help him God_ )

_______

  
_“I’d love to be~”_  
  
A song came floating out from Bucky’s favourite dance club. He paused on his way past, wondering if he wasn’t too tired for one turn around the floor. He's written some frankly atrocious poetry recently ( _according to Steve, though he'd seen the sappy garbage Steve had written for sweethearts in the past_ ) for this cute little Omega...he wonders if she'd like him better if he could show her some moves. The jazzy tune was appealing, however the next lyric sent him skittering away. The song would come to grate on his nerves in the weeks to come.

_“A Beta in blue, fighting with you, a la la, my soldier girl~”_

_______

  
The Sicilian’s expression was grave when Bucky arrived for his weekly check-in. None of his capos were there - just him and Bucky.

"The Black Women's Coalition joined up. Enlisted.”  
  
The Sicilian said bluntly, sliding a knife across the table,  
  
"They got dumped in a coloured regiment. Fighting for freedom and having theirs taken away. Again.”

He nods at the knife and Bucky picks it up, flipping it between his fingers and testing the weight.

“Their section of town is totally unguarded now. It’s the opening to the Japanese block - make sure no,”  
  
The Sicilian spits on the floor,  
  
“Patriots try to slip in there and do something they’ll regret.”

Bucky tests the blade on his finger and watches as a bead of blood topples onto the table. He’s not sure how long he can keep the block safe. He can keep out ruffians, he keep the police away, but he doesn’t know what he’s going to do when the government comes.

Judging by the downward slant of the Sicilians mouth, the slump of his massive shoulders, he didn’t know either.

_______

  
An executive order is signed and Japanese-Americans are suddenly just Japanese. No American in them, at least not according to the government.

Their houses are empty and their neighbours stand on their porches, hands pressed to their mouths ( _the scent of mourning, of desolation, of loss lining the streets and settling into the sidewalks_ ).

Elsewhere in town, there are signs with language Bucky refuses to read ( _that Yuki burns all by themselves, teeth bared whenever Bucky tries to help or Steve hovers. Not even Angus is allowed to help them, though he's perhaps the closest to understanding_ ). But here? Here there is nothing but misery.

( _The twin girls who lived at the house with the crabapple tree had tried to enlist. They were rejected. There's a draft, but their willing enlistment was rejected_ )

( _Bucky begins to think this is a war they can afford only because the buck is being passed_ )

( _He begins to think that his neighbours won’t get their houses back. When he’s given a list of items to hide, passed along by the Sicilian and a man with tattoos lining his entire torso, he knows they won’t_ )

_______

  
One day, Bucky comes back to the apartment to find Steve with enlistment papers stamped with a red 4F. Underneath them is a blank set.

Bucky’s heartrate picks up. It wobbles, like it’s about to bust clean out of his chest, and he grabs at it to steady himself. Presses back on it like he fit it back where it belongs.

“Ya should enlist.”  
  
Steve says. He won’t look at Bucky, staring instead at his 4F papers ( _when had he snuck away? Bucky had been run ragged since he started working for the Sicilian, wasn’t home as often as he could be, but when had his Prime gone behind his back-_ ).

“I can’t.”  
  
Bucky says, turning on his heel and striding into their tiny kitchen, starting to boil a pot of water for dinner. He hears a chair screech and smells Steve’s righteousness filling the room.

It makes him angry. Silently, he smothers the feeling as best he can.

“There're people dyin' overseas.”  
  
Steve’s voice is calm, but Bucky knows that won’t last long. He knows he’s about to be on the receiving end of a rousing speech - how many people had Steve driven to the recruitment office today with that passion and attitude? How many men who would never come back home?

“There're people dyin' here.”  
  
Bucky responds ( _avoiding thinking of Steve’s income dwindling with Bucky’s army pay, avoiding thinking of the Sicilian taking him on and Steve paying his debts. Of Steve getting sick with Bucky gone and-_ ).

“It’s tyranny! People livin' under the boot o' a man who claims SOCIALISM by slaughterin’ half his society. Hitler based his actions off o’ HERE - he looks t’ us!"   
  
Steve growls furiously,  
  
"Us! This ain't my country if every able-bodied person doesn’t fight against that!”  
  
There’s a copy of the Pittsburg Courier clutched in his hand containing a comparative essay Bucky has already read ( _James Thompson’s words echoing in his ears like a gunshot - what's so different between the US and Germany? What does it mean to be Half-American? Half-free?_ ).

“If segregated folks are willin’ t’ fight,”  
  
Steve snarls, all sincerity and good-intentions,  
  
“We owe it t’ them t’ fight, too. It’s what anyone would do.”

Bucky bites his tongue. This was Steve at his most...Steve. He had NO IDEA what anyone else would do. He saw people enlisting and assumed it was for the right reasons as long as they didn’t declare otherwise. He thought young people weren’t signing up for ADVENTURE and GLORY and a goddamn JOB.

He was willing to fight and die, assumed they were too.

Assumed Bucky was ( _where would his people go without him? Would he come home to find them dead?_ ).

Bucky dumped dry pasta in the pot and snapped,  
  
“An’ if we die, Steve? What then?”

“People’ve already died.”  
  
Steve said, grabbing Bucky’s shoulder,  
  
“Churchill made an appeal afta' Dunkirk cause he knew that even with luck, even with trainin’, they needed bodies. We’ve finally answered - a few more people willin’ to fight t’ their last can turn a battle around.”

Steve’s hand shook on Bucky’s shoulder,

“Could maybe free a camp.”

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and draws a breath that feels like shattered glass. He stirs the pasta.

“‘M not enlistin’.”  
  
He mumbles. Steve’s hand leaves his shoulder. Seconds later, he hears a door slam.

He eats alone.

_______

Steve gets another 4-F.

In their thin-walled shoebox apartment, Bucky can hear him mutter to himself,  
  
“We shall not flag or fail.”  
  
Bucky wants to punch Winston Churchill in the gut.

_______

The next time Steve leaves, he doesn’t hide it. He flaunts it in Bucky’s face.

And Bucky pulls on his boots to follow him.

Just like always.

_______

  
“The army doesn’t take Redlines, Steve.”  
  
Bucky snarls after a rough day. Steve has started gathering fake identities and Bucky wants to tear them to shreds ( _wants to ask Steve what the Hell he’ll do if he ever gets accepted_ ).

“They do if they pass a stress test.”  
  
Steve snarls back at him, punching him in the arm and shooting him a narrow-eyed look when he doesn’t react ( _as if to say ‘see? You’d pass’_ ).

Bucky glares at him, raising his upper lip to flash his teeth in a feral gesture of irritation. He wants to sink his teeth into Steve's scruff and shake him until he stops being such a little punk. Wants to show him exactly how Redline he could be - Second or not.

“‘M not passin’ anythin’, punk. I hit m’ stress limit every day I spend with ya.”  
  
He complains, strangling what he's feeling and hoping it won't blow up in his face.   
  
Somebody makes fun of Steve later for being Irish - says that famine is the reason he's such a skinny twit. He joins the Irish Catholic church out of spite and Bucky laughs - better that than enlistment.

_______

  
There are recruiters watching Bucky radiate disapproval as Steve tries yet another office or booth or recruiting station ( _halfway across the city from the last_ ). He notices them, but barely pays them any mind as he occupies himself with glaring a hole in the back of Steve’s rock solid skull.

Bucky lets himself smell every bit as disapproving and pissed off as he is. Lets them know he’s Redline so they don’t ask him a thing.

He doesn’t see what they see: a powerful Alpha being pushed around by a small sickly one. Complaining endlessly, though he doesn’t do a damn thing about it.

It only takes three trips for the gossip to begin.

After the fourth, Bucky gets a draft card in the mail and an evaluation letter ( _passing a stress test he never took_ ).

He’s bitter. He’s painfully bitter about it - it’s Steve's fault, but it’s also his for letting himself be shoved around like this. For being the kind of Alpha they were looking for, for being stupid enough to show it, for KNOWING BETTER and doing it anyway.   
  
Their apartment reeks of Bucky's feelings. It keeps pissing Steve right off, knowing that the unpleasantness was directed at him ( _realizing how bad it was if he could even smell it to begin with_ ) without knowing why. He decks Bucky, who bites into his scruff and keeps him pinned to the floor until he stops fighting ( _something Steve resents more than anything else, something he won't easily forgive Bucky for. He was Bucky's Prime - he shouldn't be the one on the floor_ ).   
  
Bucky can't stand the sight of him after that ( _words rising in his throat, callous and cruel_ ). 

He goes to Dot’s brothel and takes all the girls out dancing. They get completely sloshed when they see the card Bucky has tucked into his pocket. Off to help him lose it, though they know he can't - not with Steve living with him. 

Two of the girls head back to his apartment with him. They share comforting words and touches, then Bucky loses himself in them. He's sure their cries wake up Steve and bitterly rejoices in the fact. He hopes the little bastard stays up all night hearing something he can never have ( _because Steve is free, something that Bucky might never be again_ ). 

Bucky wakes up the next morning alone.

And Steve has Bucky's evaluation letter in his hand, reading it with a furiously red face. 

“Guess yer happy.”  
  
Bucky snarls at him. Steve doesn’t even have the decency to deny it - he thinks Bucky is going exactly where he's supposed to, even if he reeks of bitterness just as strongly as Bucky does ( _knowing Bucky's chances were just as slim as his, but he keeps getting rejected while Bucky got dragged in against his will_ ). 

They don’t talk to each other at all in the weeks before Bucky leaves. Steve must go back to the recruiters without him, but Bucky doesn’t hear a word about it. Doesn’t hear anything at all, even when girls and a few select pretty boys come back to the apartment with him.

Bucky cracks when it’s a few days until he gets his orders - he doesn’t want to leave anything unfinished ( _doesn’t know when he’ll be allowed to come home_ ).

He begs Steve to take care of his pack once he’s gone, though Steve isn’t hearing any of it. He’s going, too, he says. He’s going **eventually**.  
  
Bucky can’t stop him once he’s gone

Steve's too bitter and determined to pay attention to the desperation Bucky is trying so hard to keep chained up inside of himself. 

_______

The morning he has to go, Bucky hears Steve throwing up in the bathroom, coughing and hacking miserably.

Bucky ships off alone, angry and lonely and anxious as can be.

_______

Steve falls asleep and wakes up to an empty apartment.

By the time he reaches the station, Bucky is already gone.   
  
( _He cries over Sarah's grave and hates himself for being so stubborn. He writes Bucky a letter that he won't get, lost somewhere in the mail. His worry drives him to a recruitment booth he wouldn't have visited otherwise months and months later...though that's a story for another time_ )

_______

  
At basic, everyone gives Bucky a wide berth. They expect him to bond quickly and fiercely, to be dangerous in training, to influence those around him. To be Redline.   
  
More than anyone in Brooklyn ever had, they expect him to be Redline.   
  
He's pushed into training. He's dragged through the mud. There's blood in his mouth and his lungs are raw, his arms and legs ache, and he's desperately alone.   
  
They expect him to respond to the stress like he should.   
  
Like a Redline.   
  
Everything was about being a goddamned Redline.   
  
( _He hears Charles' voice snarling at him. He hears himself called a sissy again and again_ )   
  
( _He hears his Drill Sergeant call him the same thing and doesn't twitch. There's a blank expression on his face that has the woman sweating and the other recruits edging away from him_ ) 

Bucky does none of the things they expect of him.  
  
They wanted him to bond? They could go fuck themselves. He already had a Prime.  
  
Bucky might be submissive to Steve, but he's a recalcitrant bastard and they'd do well to remember that. 

Bucky's not attached to anyone. Instead, he aches for home. Instead, he shuts everything down, throws every instinct he has into learning to fight.  
  
If he fights well, he'll get his pay. If he fights well, he won't be cannon fodder. If he fights well, maybe they can win one more battle ( _free a camp_ ).   
  
This rerouting of emotion doesn't work forever. It's a stopgap measure. Bucky has outbursts frequently, snapping at people who poked at him too often in a casual setting ( _never losing his temper in drills or in front of a superior, too smart to do that_ ), staying up too late and eating too little. He gives scraps to the stray cats and shame-facedly cuddles them close.   
  
Nobody wants to go near him, so he winds up in sniper training. He learns well - Bucky's always been patient. Always been a steady hand - the Sicilian had seen it in him early on and trained him to have a perfect eye.   
  
His nose is excellent, so they train him as a tracker. He's good at it. He's difficult to distract. There are no children on the battlefield for him to be weak to.   
  
He seeks out something to occupy his mind, constantly whirling with worry, so they teach him about machines. They let him put together guns and communications equipment. They show him how to maintain a plane, a tank, and a dozen other vehincles.   
  
Finally, he develops a reputation as untouchable and influential. He finishes basic and they can't organize him into a group, so they keep him as a trainer. Here Bucky guiltily feels the first wellings of a sense of purpose. Here he finds his feet and finds himself taking pleasure in a job that went against his instincts ( _go home, go back to the pack, go back to Steve-_ ).   
  
He's lonely. He's painfully lonely and this fulfills something in him, even when he doesn't want it to. It keeps him entrenched in self-loathing until he figures out a reasons to fight that lets him let go of everything that's holding him back.   
  
Every bullet he stops, every soldier he downs, every battle he wins - those are tragedies that won't reach America. They won't touch his pack or his territory.  
  
It makes him better than just 'good' ( _his equipment and his shooting are always pristine_ ). It's also what makes him lose his position as a training officer and sends him out into the field despite the reservations of most of the soldiers who trained him.  
  
The US Army expected a Redline who has fewer defensive outbursts, one that could bond to the troops and defend from afar, able to take commands and snapping only in small degrees. They got one of those things in the end: Bucky is great at defending from a distance.  
  
Nothing gets past Bucky Barnes, because in his head if something gets past him they get to Steve, they get to his gutter children, they get to his home in the boroughs and the people who live there. And that's unacceptable.   
  
He's the best damn sniper they have.  

The army sticks him in three different units, but he just doesn’t fit. He’s excellent, too good to waste, but he doesn’t bond with his men. Doesn’t react as a unit with them when the chips are down, though his responses are always swift and direct.

He's a loose cog in a war machine. He spins and spins and eventually gets spat out.

Redline Barnes, useful but not quite right. They don’t have a place for him

So he gets dumped in to the freak unit. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Winston Churchill references here are from his 'We Shall Fight on the Beaches' speech following the Battle of Dunkirk and the events surrounding it. It's referential to Steve's opinion that Americans must fight, even if it leads to a military disaster, because it could lead to one crucial victory or give way to providence.


	5. Strictly GI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a wild wild month for me. Jacques and Dernier are two people here instead of "Jacques Dernier" because I started accidentally writing him as two people, fell in love with the idea, and proceeded. The OG chapter for this was too long so I split it in 3.

The army fed Bucky better than home ever had ( _job or no job, gang member or not, Steve’s medication was expensive. More than he’d ever know - by God, Bucky hoped he was ok_ ), but he was on the verge of losing his rather nice lunch. It wasn’t sea sickness doing him in, either. He wished it was.

Everyone knew joining the Commandos was the highest honour a mere private could receive. They were elites. Valuable.

Except for this ( _his_ ) commando division.

A combined Allied division drawing on multiple countries of origin. Led by a well-establish commando from the Special Service Brigade days - a lieutenant colonel trained in Scotland and cut of the expected cloth ( _an independent man with a good head on his shoulders. A normal Alpha, or so Bucky had heard_ ). He was the only one.

The 104th was the overly talented leftovers of other units. Too useful to cut entirely loose, but too crazy to keep anywhere else. Or too illegal - people the US wouldn’t openly admit to keeping around.

Sweet Jesus, what was he getting involved in?

Bucky’s entire trip to Scotland ( _and then wherever his division was stationed - he was painfully unclear on where he was going. When the army dumped him on this boat, he was pretty sure they were throwing him away like trash_ ) was filled with commando gossip.

Jacques Maleoux and Jean Dernier were French resistance members with a penchant for chaos. Worse, Jacques was the kind of Alpha that tended to ignore other Alphas - refused to bond, bend to authority, or break under military pressure. Despite being Weak, his impact was severe enough that his headstrong nature destabilized every group he joined. Dernier’s Omega nature apparently lent itself to causing chaos, though no one was able to tell Bucky how.

Gabe Jones was African-American and operating outside of a coloured unit. How he got removed from it was information nobody seemed to have ( _Bucky had asked...repeatedly. In an increasingly panicky fashion_ ). Jones was a Weak Omega and should fit perfectly into any group, but Bucky’s fellow soldiers were adamant that Jones 'couldn’t be controlled'. Whispers accused him of being a loose canon with an itchy trigger finger. Others implied Jones was bad at reading or controlling scent cues in the field. Either way, he didn’t mesh.

James Falsworth, a Thai-British National, wasn’t even supposed to interact with the United States officially. Thailand wouldn’t let him fight anywhere but the home front and even then wouldn’t let him fight legally (Bucky knew there was a resistance movement there, however the details were fuzzy. He’d never met a Thai person before and didn’t know anyone who had). He used his British citizenship to fight but, despite his last name, no one ever stopped suspecting him being a spy. Probably because Thailand hated Britain and he’d been OSS before he was army. His standoffish nature, adamant defense of Thai independence, and his tendency to “whip soldiers into a frenzy” as an excitable Omega didn’t help his case.

Peggy Carter was the brilliant Beta tasked with keeping them all alive. On paper, the woman was their most impressive member ( _an SOE member with an excellent combat record and recommendations for days_ ), however her authority issues were the most infamous amongst them. Nobody owned Peggy Carter.

The 104th were a disaster. A dangerous disaster - a primed grenade in a basket of live ammunition.

Bucky could scarcely believe they were allowed to operate at all. Then he caught wind of their reputation as a whole division.

Their objectives were always fulfilled. Their failure rate was 0%, but nearby divisions always wound up suffering some kind of consequence or casualty. Often, the 104th wound up absorbing serious consequences as well ( _there had been more of them, once. Their funding had also been cut after some very memorable equipment losses and several broken bones_ ).

People furthest from the fight, bizarrely, tended to suffer the worst. Therefore, Bucky was confident he was going to die.

He was going to die, Stevie would raise him from the grave, and then he was going to be murdered in cold-blood by his Prime. Wonderful.

The only good part of the whole debacle was that they wouldn’t try to bond him. And after a boat ride of soldiers cozying up to him and nipping at him like kids in the neighbourhood used to?

It was almost worth it.

( _He puked over the rails when no one was watching_ )

( _He didn’t want to die_ )

_________

  
Scotland. He was landing in Scotland. To stay.

For commando training - actual training - at the behest of Peggy Carter ( _parachuting, heavy artillery, sabotage-_ ). His division would get two weeks of meet-n-greet before being sent off to cause chaos and Bucky’s inevitable demise.

He had...no idea how to deal with this.

Woodenly, Bucky follows the officer who has given him the news ( _externally all smiles and baseline pheromones. Internally screaming_ ). He winds up inside a castle ( _a part of him, buried as deep as can be, vibrates in excitement about the history of the building - there were openings in the walls for archers!_ ) and dully notes the graves and the name of the place: Achnacarry. There is screaming and the noise of shattering glass coming from a courtyard outside.

The officer winces. She’s an Alpha, so her cringe is full-body ( _and the way she tilts herself as far away from Bucky as possible is telling_ ). Bucky almost wished they have left him with a Beta or an Omega - they would be less painfully obvious about their pity. Probably.

He could at least tune out an Omega’s scent and pretend the lack of defined body language meant they didn’t have any opinions about what was going on outside.

The officer deserted Bucky the second he stepped outside. Quickly, Bucky determined why.

The 104th had beat him to Scotland and had brought their insanity with them.

( _Something was burning in the field. It set Falsworth and Jones alight with an unholy orange cast. He could just barely detect their chaotic, nearly kaleidoscopic, pheromones from this distance amongst the scent of irritation and panic_ )  
  
...

The officer hadn’t told Bucky he had to introduce himself or which people to go to. Only that he had to join training.

Bucky was just going to...find somebody else. Anybody else. For one more day.

He retreated quickly, ignoring the prickling sensation of eyes on the back of his neck.

_________

  
Bucky had a good run of it, but Peggy Carter found him by the end of the day. She struck in the mess hall, right in the middle of Bucky telling a group of young ladies tales of New York while filching bread from their plates ( _he told himself it was to get extra food, but if he was being perfectly honest...he was hiding among them, hoping to avoid this exact scenario_ ).

The sound of her heels clicking on approach is strangely ominous. Like a train rattling down the tracks directly towards him. Each click was a wheel hitting a rail tie.

He met her gaze and pretended it didn’t send his spine crawling as she let her eyes drift down his body appraisingly. He leaned back in his seat, legs spread, and let her look. She didn’t seem impressed.  
  
Privately, he wondered what her rank was. He didn't actually know - no one had brought it up. Was he supposed to salute? Refer to her by title? No, he'd already committed to casual charm. Changing it now would make him look like more of an idiot.

Bucky breathed deep and let his own pheromones curl around her invitingly. Impossibly, her gaze got even heavier.

“Hello, charmer. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

She greeted him, her bright red lips barely upturned into a smile ( _maybe she didn’t know who he was...?_ ) that ran directly counter to the cold look in her eyes,

“Care for a dance?”

The music playing in the mess was hardly dance material, but Bucky got the distinct impression Peggy Carter wasn’t the kind of woman anyone said no to. She was also lovely and was potentially giving him an out - he could flirt with one of the leaders of the 104th and maybe, just maybe, get himself transferred. Hell, he’d sleep with her if he had to.

He’d like to survive this assignment.

With whistles and jeers at his back, Bucky slowly stood, extending a hand to her ( _some worry preventing him from doing it as quickly and smoothly as he would've liked. All 5'3" of Peggy Carter was tilted towards him invitingly, but something about the set of her shoulders had him hesitating. Sunshine, one of his street kids, used to look at him like this - innocent with secret sharp lines that would spell his demise. Sunshine was half-feral, though..._ ).

“With a beautiful dame? Always.”

He replied with a wolfish grin and a wink. The women around him tittered, somebody’s lust stropping against him like a cat. Standing, he absolutely towered over Peggy Carter. Despite that, the way she held herself still made him feel small - there was an easy confidence in the set of her feet and that tiny quirk of her lips.

She took his hand, tiny palms engulfed by his, and -

Flipped him over her shoulder. **Violently.**

Bucky’s breath left his body as he hit the ground. He managed to twist enough that his head didn’t crack against the stone, however his stomach and thighs took one hell of a beating. Christ.

“I’ll dance with you when you introduce yourself to your division. _Properly_ , Private Barnes.”

Peggy’s voice was prim and proper - nothing in it implying she had just thrown him on his face. What a flair for dramatics. Peggy Carter was a drama queen - tiny and angry.

Steve would love this lady ( _Hell, he’d probably make her his third given the slightest inch_ ).

Bucky wheezed out a laugh from the ground, staying down while he cracked an eye open ( _no point in standing against somebody who would just toss him again. Let tiny Peggy know she’d taken him down a peg_ ). Peggy’s face swam into view past the breathless tears blurring his vision.

Her face gave the barest twitch ( _a frown of confusion_ ), making Bucky laugh harder ( _well, as hard as he could. Peggy packed a big punch in a little package_ ). She clearly didn’t know what to do with his reaction - any other Alpha would probably be angry. Most would consider it a threat to their dominance and a rude one at that. Bucky had always been a sucker for small, scrappy people willing to kick his ass politely, though.

Bucky blinked away his lingering tears and noted Peggy Carter’s arched brow. Seeing that she had his attention, she slowly shifted her gaze from him to a group of people across the room. When she looked back at Bucky, there was a hint of challenge in her Beta fresh scent ( _oddly neutral and a smidge flat. Curious. He opened his mouth slightly to taste it, then snapped it shut as her shoulders tightened threateningly. He didn't feel like getting tosses again_ ).

“Well?”

She asked,

“Are you going to introduce yourself, Charmer?”

Her judging eyebrow climbed even higher. He was half-tempted to tell her what his mother used to chide Steve with - keep that there and it’ll get stuck that way. He thinks Peggy Carter would be willing to live with a permanently challenging expression, though.

Huffing, Bucky heaves himself unsteadily to his feet.

“O’ course.”

He winked, giving a jaunty salute,

“Where’re m’ manners? I’ll hop right to, darlin’.”

Her challenging scent grew a little stronger even as she turned her back on him and left, making his proper introduction a little harder. He’d just have to track her down later.  
  
Of course, Bucky was assuming she wouldn’t make it easy.

Even if the 104th was going to kill Bucky, Peggy Carter was definitely going to survive this war ( _and all the others she started_ ).

_________

  
It takes him awhile and several favours ( _to score tobacco, some chocolate, and information_ ), but Bucky manages to charm the devil out of most of the 104th by the next afternoon. He even does it without laying on any Alpha pressure - he got the impression from their collective authority issues ( _and being thrown_ ) that coming in like a cloud of pheromones would piss them off later. It seems it was a good decision - the Omegas had tried to knock his socks off several times since their first meetings ( _creeping up on him with their excitement and bloodlust_ ). He’s pleased as punch until he realizes he can’t find Peggy Carter or Timothy Dugan anywhere and he’s still not training with the 104th.

He’s alone and his introductions are incomplete.

“She’s testin’ me.”

He mumbles to himself,

“Jus’ makin’ sure I can play get-along.”

He can’t shake a certain sense of dread, though ( _that this test is something more. That it’s important to his survival here_ ).  
  
"'S just instincts."   
  
He tells himself,   
  
"Jus' instincts acting up. She challenged me, reminded me o' Stevie. Nothin' is wrong." 

_________

  
A day passed in relative solitude. The members of the 104th were beginning to look at him askance. Their trust was a fragile thing as long as Peggy Carter and Timothy Dugan were nowhere to be found.

Another day passed.

Bucky into had two weeks to train with his division and ensure that their disorganization in the field didn’t cost him life and limb. If they weren’t willing to meet him in the middle and ACTUALLY meet him - something he supposed he deserved for his initial rudeness ( _though the sickening suspicion of something more lingered_ ) - he was just going to have to prove his worth some other way.

He was going to make them value him, damn it all ( _Bucky was a people pleaser. Needed to be needed and all that - needed to protect. Ugh, instincts. It was just instincts..._ ).

Bucky drags himself to the shooting range. No one had actually approached him about training and he’d been dissuaded from 'bothering' the general recruits, but nothing was going to stop him from getting in commando learning anyway. He sweet talks the range office with a dinner date and some excellent gun handling ( _and a squeeze of very well-defined biceps_ ) and begins to run through a drill he had watched and memorized.

Observe the terrain for five seconds. Turn your back as targets were rearranged. Turn, locate anomalies, and shoot. Don't hesitate.

He has increased his range well beyond the norm ( _the range officer offering breathless compliments as he jogged to change the targets again_ ) when Peggy Carter finally decides to make herself visible.

Her ice cold hands on the back of his neck startle him. He flinched violently from the prone position, but kept his eye on his scope and his shot lined up. It hits and, exhaling, he whirls on his absentee teammate.

“Yer lil joke was a bad plan, Carter. I coulda shot the RO.”

He snaps, irate ( _instincts bristling - God, what was it about Carter that set his filed down teeth on edge? He was a harmless Redline for the most part, but Carter made him want to snap_ ), and finds himself snarling as she simply lifts her trusty old judgmental brow at him.

“Maybe ya don’t give a care bout basic safety, but I do. That RO has t’ trust me t’ place m’ targets. Shootin’ ‘im ain’t gonna do me any favors.”

His accent thickens and he feels his neck grow hot. He knew the Brooklyn brogue made him look like a hick ( _prevented people from taking him seriously_ ), but he had no intentions of laying someone flat in the dirt by accident here. He was in a bad enough position as is.

“You didn’t miss.”

Peggy said. Her tone was as flat as her scent. Something was amiss - the same sense of suspicion was setting Bucky’s stomach roiling. She simply stared at him in silence and, in frustration, Bucky turned back to his scope.

Two shots later, she was peering down binoculars and pestering him.

“You know,”

She said,

“In the field, you aren’t as distraction free as you are in the range. How do you deal with distraction, Barnes - clearly not that well considering that last shot.”

He held his tongue and exhaled his frustration. He’d made the last shot - he **knew** that. There was nothing in the army Bucky was more confident in than his shooting.

Peggy’s boot nudged his shoulder for the next shot. Her scent alternated between amused and some kind of false anger that made his nose itch horribly ( _it felt wrong. He wanted to shove her down and sit on her like he did to Steve when he was being a jackass, but he'd probably get corporal punishment for that_ ). A lot about Peggy Carter felt wrong to him, though nobody else seemed particularly bothered.

The mystery bombarded him, though his finger kept squeezing the trigger.

Targets completed, Bucky looked up from his scope.

“What do ya want, Carter?”

He asked, struggling with the urge to clutch her neck and inhale until her true intentions became obvious ( _maybe pin her down and shower her with irritation until she stopped trying to piss him off_ ). He shook it off as best he could, more than accustomed to ignoring the Redline in him ( _quietly bothered by how strongly Peggy Carter had somehow set it off)_.

The judging eyebrow made its return. Bucky was torn between thinking Steve would admire this woman or would fist fight her to the death. God, if Steve had hated him would he be this annoying?

Yeah...yeah he probably would be. Scratch that - he definitely would be.

“What do you need, Sir?”

He tried when no answer was forthcoming. A ghost of a smile touched those red red lips.

“You, Charmer.”

She responded, fingers twitching with amusement despite the flat Beta scent surrounding her.  
  
Bucky fixed her with the blankest expression he could. It was one that set off all of of the ‘Bucky is stupid and needs things explained to him’ signals in Steve’s brain. Judging by the barest whisp of exasperation in the air, it did the same things to Carter. Good ( _she deserved to feel even a fraction of his annoyance_ ).

“I need a big Strong Alpha calm enough to let a Weaker assignment walk all over him. One with just enough wrong with him to wind up here.”

She tells him, tone just this side of patronizing. It’s his turn to lift a judgmental brow at her. He has no idea what she wants with him - if it’s commando training, she could easily just assign him a mission or have sent Dugan. If it’s personal, he doubts he would’ve gone this far out of her way to annoy him.

Her minuscule smile grows a little larger. Oddly, he feels a little pleased with himself. Despite how annoying Peggy Carter was quickly proving to be, getting her approval was difficult and was already beginning to feel like an achievement.

Bucky was a sucker. He hated Steve so much for conditioning him to be like this.

“How would like to go on a mission with me?”

She asks him, changing tactics so abruptly that Bucky just blinks at her stupidly. Noting how off-balance he was, her smile grew even larger ( _toothier_ ).

“It’ll be a little introduction to the Commandos.”

She tells him, giving him a hand up and rubbing her wrist against his sweetly,

“A proper introduction to Lieutenant Colonel Dugan and myself. I could really use the help.”

There’s a certain...roundness to her scent now. It was less flat, more intriguing. It settled warmly in his belly and reminded him of his gutter brats - always pestering him for help and pleading with the odd neutral scent of children ( _Sunshine in particular coming to mind. Manipulative little brat_ ).

Carter looked suddenly...smaller now that he was standing. Even smaller than she’d seemed in the mess hall.

“Please?”

She asked. He caved before he even asked what she needed.  
  
Y'know, like an idiot.

_________

  
The mission was stealing Timothy Dugan’s clothes right out from under the noses of the rest of the 104th. Apparently Carter, nutcase that she was, had gotten him to suck up to the other members in advance specifically to pull of this heist. She wanted them to, and he was quoting her exactly here,

“Learn to work together for once in their godforsaken lives, even if it cost them their pride and their underwear.”

The scheme was ridiculous. It was flat-out stupid. It went against all of Bucky’s behaviour since he joined the army - don’t stand out, be the best soldier you can be, and get home as quickly and quietly as possible.

But the mischief in Peggy’s dancing feet, the brightness in her eyes, and the ease with which she touched him combined with the fact that Bucky was already screwed...well, it convinced him to give it a go.

The fact that she reminded him of Steve ( _harebrained schemes and good-intentions_ ) probably helped.

Peggy let the 104th know in advance that pranks were afoot. Apparently, she’d convinced them that other Commando divisions frowned upon theirs ( _true_ ) and were intent on embarrassing them ( _also true_ ) by staging something of a panty raid ( _false...at least, Bucky thought it was false. He kept a jacket on him from his days in Brooklyn and he'd happily knife anyone who stole it_ ). She even dropped them a few hints about people they hated.

Somehow Bucky wasn’t surprised to find out the 104th hated the batch of new recruits that had gossiped with him for his entire journey.

Either way, they were in red alert. Bucky knew they’d never failed a mission, so he hoped against hope Peggy Carter had a plan.

She did, of course. But, finally lending some evidence to Bucky’s sneaking suspicion she was testing him ( _reminding him steadily more and more of Sunshine and all the difficulties getting them under control had caused him_ ), she’d only tell him parts of it if he told her parts of his plan. He didn’t have a plan. He told her this, but her only response was,

“So make one.”

With an edge of...something. Something floating in that Beta-fresh, neutral as a child, scent.

Bucky was going to write Steve the most scathing letter possible after this. He wouldn’t even be involved in this mess if Steve didn’t damage something in his brain permanently in their youth. A statement like that should’ve annoyed the Hell out of Bucky, but instead, like an absolute idiot, he immediately got to plotting.

To trying to please.

Christ, he was a Second through and through. He was happy his step-father didn’t stick around long enough to see him hit this low.

Finally, Bucky managed to gain enough information about the layout of the camp and blind spots for Peggy to give him the barebones of a plan. Against his better judgement, he found himself cobbling together his meager information around hers, planning WITH her instead of beside her.

It was...it was kind of fun. He’d forgotten what fun felt like, really. His walls were up so high around other soldiers ( _always touching, always trying to grab hold of what him HIM to use it for themselves, to force their pack to get larger and stronger_ ) that even positive emotions tended to stay bottled up. Some odd edge to Peggy’s scent kept sawing at his good mood though ( _kept driving him to try harder and harder to prove himself to her, no matter how stupid it seemed_ ).

Together, they created a diversion amongst the swimming and aquatic infiltration training unit - a monster out of on the water made of wood, styrofoam, and rumours Peggy had been feeding before she even arrived. The schedule for the whole day was knocked off course as several officers fled, one nearly drowned, and dozens of others moved to attack Nessie 2.0.

Stubbornly, the 104th refused to leave their positions all around their Lieutenant Colonel’s tent, but they didn’t need them to leave anyway. They only needed fewer eyes on them.

Peggy and Bucky quietly lifted the pegs of several field tents. Together, they lifted them and moved them several inches to the left. They placed them down, waited, and then repeated until a new path to Dugan’s tent was forged 8 feet to the left of the original one. They waited for a patrol to pass through the area, failing to note the change, then began to turn the tents until their doors faced one another with the zips down. They had a clear route of escape now next to a false one - thus flee through the tents instead of the open alley ( _that lead to a dead end - the walk of the castle gate_ ).

A secondary diversion in the mess, one of the cooks faking a heart attack in exchange for a VERY good word put in at a certain Brooklyn brothel, delayed the majority of new recruits from returning to the barracks and made Bucky’s absence near-invisible. Peggy slipped in to check in the members of the 104th sent to collect food for the others.

While she was gone, Bucky tipped off several soldiers that he’d sailed over with the the vulnerability of Dugan’s tent. He wistfully mentioned how he wished he could do something to show the 104th unfit for battle - immature and disorganized - so he could join another division. He focused on his most hopeful memories to really sell it with scent. After making the appropriate sympathetic noises, the group slipped off with a blatantly fake promise to keep him notified 'if anything happened'.  
  
He could sense their excitement rolling off of them in waves. They were going to **make** something happen.

Following the old path to the wrong tent, they launched an assault on some other hapless officer. The noise lured in the Frenchmen waiting outside of Dugan’s tent. The resulting furious screaming of a drill sergeant lured in Dugan himself.

Peggy ghosted up to Bucky’s side. They waited, peering through a scope from a grove of trees, before finally moving in.

Everyone sensed something was afoot now, however. The 104th organized, sweeping through the camp to look for mischief. They noted the moved tents but, as Peggy gleefully noted, none of them noticed the unzipped doors.

Her and Bucky struck. They snatched all of Dugan’s clothes - an entire trunk - and sped out the door. They ducked between tents as shouts sounded off behind them, then skidded into their secret route, ducking and dodging their way into hedges where Bucky had prepared camouflage.

When everything quieted, they opened the trunk.

And a smoke grenade went off, blinding them both.

When it finally cleared, Timothy Dugan was standing in front of them, his lips pressed into an unimpressed line.

“Hello, Sir.”

Bucky said with a jaunty salute and the biggest punch of friendly he could summon,

“'S nice t' meet ya at last.”

A wall of exasperation hit Bucky and instantly made him think of being 16 again ( _down by the docks with Angus boxing his ears for stealing whiskey and sharing it with Steve_ ).

“Everyone else already knows better than to go along with Carter.”

Dugan rumbled, voice deeper and growlier than any Bucky had heard before, impact nearly sending Bucky’s thoughts spinning,

“You’re going to have to learn though. You’ll find out your punishment in the morning, Barnes.”

_________

  
Abandoned by Carter and frog-marched to the barracks, Bucky lay awake in his bed. Anxiety warred with a frustrated sense of failure in his stomach. He was...unsettled.

The edge to Peggy Carter's pheromones had been desperation ( _desperation to make **something** work_ ). The scent of it was muddled and strange, something wrong with it, but by the way she’d been acting...it had to have been desperation.

And he’d failed her, in a sense. She’d asked for his help and he’d failed her.

Bucky didn’t want to be punished. He didn’t want to be a member of the 104th. He didn’t want to be harassed by Peggy Carter.

But he felt bad for her. He couldn’t shake that ( _or the way she’d rubbed her wrist against his sweetly, a hint of roundness to the emotion he’d breathed in, something friendly and familiar-_ ).

_________

  
Bucky took it back. He didn’t feel bad for Peggy Carter at all. He was scrubbing the latrines alone and Peggy Carter could jump off a cliff for all he cared.

_________

  
That night, left arm burning with the strain of scrubbing and pulling at grout with his fingernails, Bucky got the news. Their little stunt ( _coupled with a record of Bucky’s ‘talents’ that had appeared out of nowhere_ ) had apparently proven the 104th Commando division had nothing to gain from training in Scotland.

They were sailing to their next assignment at dawn.

Bucky took all his thoughts from the morning back. If Peggy Carter fell off a cliff, he WOULD care. He’d care because he pushed her.

_________

  
The shoreline shrunk and Peggy Carter looked victorious. Dugan just looked tired. The others chattered excitedly about the Italian front.

Bucky didn’t say anything, staring unseeingly into the waves.

He was going to die, wasn't he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Achnacarry is a real place! It's a private estate and castle on this little hamlet used for Commando training. There really was a graveyard there too for those unlucky enough to die in training. Bucky didn't even get a fraction of the usual Commando experience - he was never meant to. His and the 104th's arrival in Scotland was arranged pretty intentionally by Peggy in a last ditch effort to find a way to make such a disastrous unit work. Her methods are...unorthodox, but will slowly begin to make more sense as we come to understand what the REAL problems amongst the Howlies are. 
> 
> Also, personal headcanon for the Howlies: they are essentially the Miscellaneous Troop (ie the division made up of largely persons from enemy countries who had defected / were refugees). The Allied army couldn't really afford to reject people who could do a good job, but it definitely didn't want to have anything to do with them.


	6. Strictly GI (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter count keeps expanding as the Howlies clammer for attention...oops.

Bucky had no faith in the 107th Division to begin with. He’d landed in Scotland to rumors of the destructive chaos they wrought, then witnessed it first hand as Peggy Carter played him like a fiddle.  
  
So yeah, he had no faith.  
  
Standing on Italian soil, facing down a whole new warfront, he had less than no faith in his new division. Instead of believing they’d accidentally cause his death, Bucky was pretty sure they were going to do it on purpose ( _there was a look on Peggy Carter’s face. It wasn’t obvious. Hell, it barely existed. But **something** was there - either in her eyes or her scent - that said she had it out for him_ ).  
  
An unholy smile was making its way onto everyone’s face as Carter and Dugan planned. It was excentuated by the insidious sweetness of Omegas trying to convince Bucky to feel what they felt ( _a terrible kind of excitement that made his fingers tremble. Bloodlust and something to prove_ ).  
  
Nobody was actually listening to the details of the plan - nobody was picking them apart.   
  
Nobody but Bucky.  
  
Sicily was overrun by Nazis - Bucky knew that better than anybody ( _the Sicilian’s hand pressed warm and heavy into his back, his voice following Bucky through most of his adulthood. “Red diamond.” A chuckle, “Sounds fancy. An unbreakable man.” A mark pressed into Bucky’s skin with all the proud approval of a father_ ). Their supply lines were many and varied. They were difficult to disrupt.  
  
The 107th were going to sabotage them. As many as possible. In multiple uncoordinated strikes - night raids - before moving in for a heavy hit.  
  
Their division were there to incite panic and destruction. It...it fit them well. Bucky just didn’t see how it fit him. Or fit their life expectancies ( _there were dozens of ways they could be more subtle than this. When the Sicilian had enemies stealing his supply-_ ).  
  
He bit his tongue through the first few raids, holding on for dear life as the excitement of the Omegas boiled over ( _the ferocious call for freedom that covered Falsworth like a cloak, the insane desire for adrenaline that Jones and Dernier released like chlorine gas_ ) and Jacques’ own excitement coloured the air with an Alpha punch that would make any other Alpha itch to compete ( _though Dugan took it in stride, absolutely placid whereas the Omegas made him obsessively flick the pivot safety on his Mauser rifle on and off, on and off. When Bucky had flicked up the wing safety, blocking the sight completely, Dugan had collected himself easily without lowering his head to Bucky_ ).  
  
He bit his tongue through Falsworth and Carter feeding sawdust into the engines of heavy machinery, causing them to backfire with too fast a pour, the resulting bang forcing them all to run for their lives.  
  
He bit his tongue through a knife buried in his hip, striking bone, because Jacques shot too early ( _hands jittering in a pattern exactly matching Dernier’s, pumping out pheromones of poisonous excitement_ ).  
  
He bit his tongue through Peggy Carter’s slow transition from amused indifference to a disgusted sneer.  
  
“Such a good little soldier.”  
  
She said, smirking in a way that rang oddly false ( _something true was there, too. It was tucked into the depths of her Beta clean scent. He hated-_ ),  
  
“Always obeying orders. You’re going to get yourself killed, Private.”  
  
Bucky had been tested countless times by countless people. Children on the streets. His own mother and sister. Steve, at times. Charles, his fucking stepfather, as often as he could. The police when his gutter kids stepped out of line ( _and when they didn’t_ ). The army.  
  
Everybody wanted him to snap ( _“No son of mine will ever be a soldier.” His mother cried. He had never wanted to disappoint her. She didn’t answer his letters...neither did Steve_ ). Everybody wanted to see the Alpha he was ‘hiding’.  
  
He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Bucky wasn’t going to assert his dominance here, he wasn’t going to form a pack ( _he already had STEVE. He had the dock Omegas. He had people-)_ , he wasn’t going to **snap**!  
  
Peggy Carter could take her tests and her jokes ( _some of his clothes had disappeared - namely his best socks_ ) and shove them up her ass. And she’ll never know he felt that way - he was every inch the charmer she accused him of being ( _bringing her tea in the morning, tipping his hat as she passed him by, never breathing a bad word in her direction_ ).  
  
So the 107th burned their way through Sicily, Bucky Barnes at their back, and they joked around with him while maintaining some kind of invisible wall after every mission. All of them were likely to bare their teeth if somebody got too close. It kept them away from Bucky and vice versa when it mattered. It suited Bucky just fine, barring the whole ‘near-death experience on the daily’ part of it.  
  
Then, the little raids stopped. The Italians were well and truly afraid - that was all the Allied powers wanted, really. US attention was focused solely on Japan and Britain was more invested in Germany than the Italian front ( _something Carter and Falsworth snarled at each other about, Brit VS Brit_ ). They could have left. Moved elsewhere on a different assignment. Taken some down-time.  
  
But Carter and Dugan pushed for more. They wanted their heavy hit and the rest of the 107th wanted to make a name for themselves. The plan was simple enough.  
  
Deceptively simple, in Bucky’s opinion.  
  
There were a series of abandoned wells just outside the city proper. They connected to the fresh groundwater sources of the island. Damage to the water table was likely to do severe damage to the rich agriculture that had been supporting the Nazis ( _“ **Gestapo**.” Peggy Carter and Falsworth would sneer, as if that mattered. The Italians in Brooklyn had never cared - a Nazi was a Nazi. Mussolini was a feckless coward who didn’t deserve to name his own police force if he was going to bow to Germany and allow the SS to wander among them, stripping Italians of their rights and trying to edge their way into Sicily and Venice_ ).  
  
Carter and Dugan wanted to rig them all to blow. The shock, debris, and damage to the bedrock of the island would either divert or at least temporarily distribute toxins in the water. It would also force the city forces to stretch their resources thinner looking for weaknesses outside the city limits.  
  
In full fighting form, the 107th were destructive and unpredictable. The proposed resolution to this was to send them out in pairs: a scout and a rigger for each well. Bucky considered how resistant Jacques and Dugan seemed to be to interacting with one another, then considered how dismissive of his own influence they were, and realized they couldn’t be paired with one another or him. They’d ignore each other’s stress. The Omegas shouldn’t be paired either - that was a recipe for disaster. That left Peggy paired with an Omega, then Jacques, then Dugan...  
  
And him. **Alone.**  
  
There was that look again on Carter’s face - the one she used when she called him a good little soldier ( _“No son of mine-“_ ).  
  
He watched Jacques and Dernier naturally gravitate to one another. Peggy and Dugan did the same, while Falsworth and Jones grudgingly nodded at one another ( _a matchup Bucky strongly disapproved of - sure, they were the most conspicuous and could go to the well furthest from the city, but they would feed off of one another and botch the job_ ). There were bonds among the commandos. Maybe they weren’t true bonds, prevented by the friction between all of them and the stress of war or their own malfunctions ( _screwy genetics, just like Bucky’s_ ). They were **something** though.  
  
Some kind of friendship.  
  
And charming though he was, Bucky wasn’t included. He was **other**. A wildcard.  
  
A sniper in a unit that had no goddamn need for it. The man in the distance. He could see now how, with the 107th, the person furthest from the fighting always wound up killed.  
  
Dead and **alone**.  
  
Bucky grit his teeth until his jaw ached. The need to establish himself, to make himself a dominant presence, to make them listen...it was more overwhelming than it had ever been. He suddenly felt like he was 13 again, skulking around in an alley, knife in hand, his stepfather’s back in sight-  
  
“I’ve seen how observant you are. Capable of memorizing your environment in seconds.”  
  
Carter said, exchanging a veiled look with Dugan that Bucky couldn’t read ( _why was Carter always telling him what to do? Wasn’t Dugan their leader?_ ),  
  
“You don’t need a scout and you’re perfectly capable of rigging. You’re best suited to work alone. Unless...”  
  
The way she trailed off agitated him ( _the ellipses that implied dotted along his scalp one by one_ ). He knew he stunk of that agitation and impotent fury at his inability to control himself. The need to prove himself rose up again - especially when he noticed Dernier’s quirked brow, the disrespectful smirk on Jacques’ face-  
  
_(“I don’t want to die.” Was a mantra that followed him each and every day)_  
  
_(But another one ate at him constantly since he’d gotten to army, since he’d been ignored and abandoned at every turn, since his letters home went unanswered-)_  
  
_(“None of you **own me**.”)_  
  
_(“But soon you’ll wish you did.”)_  
  
Quietly, hands clenched behind his back tight enough to draw blood ( _scenting of frustration, of disagreement, of something  half-formed_ ), Bucky nodded. Peggy Carter’s eye twitched.  
  
She exchanged another odd look with Dugan. Bucky looked away. He didn’t need them. He didn’t need anyone but Steve. He didn’t **need** to be needed ( _his kids snarling at him, pushing him around, eventually loosening enough to accept his scraps and his fussy cleaning-_ ).  
  
He’s not a **sissy**.  
  
Bucky goes to bed early, his heart in his throat. He writes another letter to Steve.  
  
( _He doesn’t need anybody but his Prime_ )  
  
( _He’s not a Redline. Not like **that**_ )

  
______

  
Doing both jobs simultaneously isn’t easy, but Bucky manages on his own. He sneaks his way on-site by keeping a careful eye out, executing perfect camouflage, and being as paranoid as an old mafiaso could have possibly trained him to be ( _‘jokingly’ poisoning him - mildly- more than once. Chucking him into a whorehouse for a laugh. Stabbing holes in Bucky’s favourite pants_ ).  
  
Everything is all well and good until...well, until he climbs INTO the well. He has shimmied about 10 feet down on his ( _frankly shoddy_ ) rigging, the optimal distance according to Falsworth’s loose knowledge about infrastructure here and this location's positioning on the water table, when an ominous rumble sets his nerves alight.  
  
The clouds had been heavy when they arrived, but Bucky...Bucky had had foolish hopes.  
  
A downpour started in earnest, and a shudder ran up Bucky’s spine as he heard the drops hitting the ice cold water another 10 feet below him.  
  
Plink. Plink, plink, plunk-  
  
A rock had slid free from the wall and hit the water ( _shallow water based on that noise, thank God_ ). His hands scrabbled for purchase on the unexpected mud where solid stone had once been. To his dismay, the stone walls were quickly becoming as slippery as the mud ( _the rain was half frozen, creating a frictionless barrier)_.  
  
For a few seconds, he managed to hold on despite shaking hands. Finally, his breath steadied, even though his heart was still jackhammering in his chest. He exhaled slowly.  
  
The rain got louder as he hauled himself back up to the lip of the well to add an extra knot to his rig. Nervously, he checked his surroundings. Bucky couldn’t hear or see anything past the downpour. Anyone could sneak up on him at any moment - he had to hurry ( _he had to finish placing the explosives. He had to go back down_ ).  
  
Bucky shimmied down a foot, painstakingly careful. He could’ve sworn he heard something in the rain - the wet splash of boots in mud.  
  
He managed to slam the toe of his boot deep into the mud that was nearly his undoing earlier. It gave easily under his foot, forming a vacuum that had him feeling more stable. He listened as closely as he could, but he’s close enough to the waters surface that he can only hear the rain slamming into it ( _making it rise threateningly_ ).  
  
Three more steps. Three more steps, some rigging, and a precarious upward climb. He could do it - he’d managed to slide in through Mary-Anne Okumura’s window when her parents were home during a blizzard ( _sure, he’d fallen face first onto her carpet, but he’d still gotten lucky_ ).  
  
His foot slid a little to the left and he readjusted it. His other foot was beginning to slide, too, and the skin on his fingers was rubbing raw. Bucky pressed his forehead to the wet stone and resolved to take the next three steps quickly.  
  
The wall smelt like ozone. Why-  
  
The well was suddenly thrown into high relief and, terrified of being seen in the beam of a flashlight ( _he hadn’t heard anyone-_ ), Bucky moved further down ( _hands bleeding, making keeping a grip even harder, damn it)_. The crack of a gunshot rang out. Instinctively, his head whipped around, curving his spine-  
  
Straining his arms _(loosening his grip_ )-  
  
Bucky released a startled yelp as he fell. His left elbow smashed punishingly into the wall of the well, numbing it up to the shoulder and making him mercifully close his eyes before being plunged into filthy well water.  
  
Gasping, he flailed back up to the surface, searching wildly for the person who had found him...  
  
And heard the tail end of a rumble of thunder as another flash of lightning lit up the well.  
  
Shit.  
  
SHIT.  
  
He’d been scared shitless by a STORM. Paranoia had gotten the best of him - there was no way he was getting out of this incident without a ruined gun and chills, though he’d at least managed to slap the bomb onto the wall during his fall ( _a little out of place - his elbow had probably knocked it_ ). All he had to do was climb back up, set it to blow, and pretend this never happened.  
  
He moved his legs, realizing he was standing, but was met with resistance. Looking down yielded no results - the bottom of the well was pitch black and he’d dropped the light he’d been using ( _it was dead now, either from water or himself inadvertently turning it off on the way down like an idiot_ ).  
  
He tried to move again. The resistance was greater - tried suck his boots right off his feet.  
  
Mud.  
  
He was stuck in mud settling up to his hips. In frigid water. Shit - he’d have to jam his hands back in to disturb it, sweep it out of the way while wasting heat and energy. Maybe he could just haul himself out by gripping the wall...?  
  
Uselessly, Bucky’s palms slapped against a soft slick surface. Algae covered the entire wall next to him. Either that or more mud. Either way, in the pitch darkness, it was slippery and couldn’t be easily pried off. He couldn’t feel an end to it either.  
  
His heart plummeted to his stomach. A shiver worked its way up his spine as thunder continued to roar outside over a howling wind.  
  
Nobody would hear him if he screamed _(not an enemy, but no friends either_ ).  
  
Hypothermia would take a few hours to set in. They would come to find him - the 107th wouldn’t leave him. They’d come back if only to blow the well. Couldn’t leave a job unfinished, couldn’t leave a charmer to a watery grave ( _an outsider, regarded coolly, liked but not IMPORTANT, not how he was to Stevie-_ ).  
  
The mud encasing his legs would keep them lukewarm, at least. The rest of him already wasn’t doing so well.  
  
Minutes passed sluggishly, Bucky’s heart hammering fruitlessly inside his chest, before he realized something else was amiss. Something worse.  
  
The water was rising up his body. Its progress was slow, but it had risen at least a quarter of an inch since he fell. The rain wasn’t showing any signs of stopping, either.  
  
Was he going to drown here? Slowly, having to feel the water rise until it cut off his airways? Or was he going to freeze to death?   
  
Would anyone ever find his body? Maybe it would be buried in mud, his tags lost, and Stevie would never know anything beyond the fact that Bucky’s checks stopped comings. Nobody would feed his kids-  
  
No. The 107th would come. Peggy Carter wanted SOMETHING from him. There was a fire in that dame’s belly and a mission in her head - she’d set him up here and he hoped to God it wasn’t to kill him.  
  
Restless and afraid, he swept his hands through the mud ( _trying to get some sensation back in his left arm_ ). The army might not want Bucky, but they still wanted to use him. Killing him on the Italian Front wouldn’t do them any favors - there was no one here they could accuse of stealing his corpse or of using him as a POW. There were no war conventions they’d be breaking. Besides, he didn’t think that either the Nazis or the Gestapo cared much for war as a gentleman’s sport ( _they’d broken plenty of laws on their own_ ).  
  
No one would rally behind his cause if he died ( _his hands clenched against the silty mud, stirring a cold current against his thighs_ ). He wasn’t a useful figurehead. No, he was worth more as a body on the field. He wasn’t being thrown away ( _wasn’t he, though? He hadn’t truly been trained in Scotland_ ).  
  
Frantically, he unburied his legs. He had to move. Maybe there was a spot on the wall he could climb despite his violent shivering and the algae. Maybe-  
  
His fingers brushed against metal. Terrified, Bucky’s opposite hand flew up to his throat, clawing desperately until he found the chain of his dog tags.  
  
He was still wearing them ( _someone would be able to identify his corpse_ ).  
  
His fingers twitched and the metal in the water was pressed into his palm. He felt a beaded chain. Tugging, bile rising in his throat, Bucky unearthed an oblong flat object. His thumb brushed over its surface.  
  
He could feel the printing there.  
  
These weren’t his tags, but they WERE tags. Bucky was standing in somebody’s grave ( _why was this well filled with mud? How many things lay beneath his feet?_ ).  
  
A hysterical laugh bubbled out of his throat before Bucky wretched violently. His stomach twisted and heaved. Some warmth finally returned to his face as tears rolled freely down his cheeks ( _this is what being a soldier looks like, Stevie. Be grateful you're stuck at home_ ).  
  
His gaze turned skyward after a few minutes of struggling for breath. Wait - there! A flash of lightning illuminated a face staring down at him.   
  
Bucky jerked forwards, barely taking in the Asian features before he was calling for help over the screaming winds. No matter how hard he strained his ears, he heard no response in the darkness.  
  
“Hello!”  
  
Bucky called again,  
  
“Hello, please, I’m alive! I’m alive!”  
  
The next flash of lightning revealed nothing - no human interrupted Bucky’s view of storm dark sky. If he were anyone else, maybe he’d doubt what he’d seen, but Bucky’s life in this war depended on his eyes. He was sure somebody had been there ( _someone who didn’t look Italian, was unlikely to be affiliated with the Nazis - the Japanese stayed within their own ranks, loyal only to their emperor and the grand idea of Japanese supremacy_ ).  
  
“Please!”  
  
He tried in heavily accented Japanese, doubt swirling in his gut alongside his fear ( _memories of the Japanese-American families in his neighborhood being threatened, of their confusion, of their pale drawn expressions in the face of the brutal acts enacted by a country they’d once called home_ ),  
  
“Please, I’m American!”  
  
Something banged against the wall of the well. A curse ( _or maybe it was just the wind_ ) drifted down to him, barely audible.  
  
“Please!”  
  
He repeated. Something heavy collided with the water to his left, sinking and settling somewhere adjacent to his boot. The wind was still screaming, however Bucky thought he could make out a voice underneath it.  
  
A tiny barely-there flame sprang into existence at the mouth of the well, fluttering desperately within a man’s cupped hands. Its glow didn’t extend far enough to make out the man’s face again, but it was enough - he knew someone was up there ( _their elbow rested heavily on a thick length of rope that disappeared into the darkness. Bucky would bet his right boot - the one in the best condition though it’d be worth shit all now - that it was connected to whatever had fallen into the water_ ).  
  
“-b on!”  
  
The flame went out.  
  
“Gr- -n!”  
  
Blindly, Bucky reached for where he thought the rope may be. There was a moment of terror, somehow more sickening than the rest ( _his desperation clogging the atmosphere around him, even past the heavy odor of rain_ ), where he missed.  
  
**“GRAB ON!”**  
  
He seized the rope just as it began to move upwards. It ripped more skin off of his bleeding palms, and Bucky realized abruptly that his legs were still thoroughly embedded in the mud.  
  
He released the rope with one hand, using the other to continue digging his thighs free. A knot jammed against his fingers and began pulling his arm upwards, the numbness in his elbow from earlier becoming a sharp stabbing pain.  
  
Bucky forced his legs to shift, allowing water to pool in a thin gap between his pants and the mud. He hoped to god it would be enough.  
  
Grabbing the rope with both hands, Bucky had one moment to look down when another flash of lightning illuminated the sky.  
  
Dog tags lay in the mud. He snatched them without another thought, looping them into his mouth and biting down as his whole body was wrenched upwards. It felt for a moment like the mud might crush his calves, but his boots slipped free and so did his body.  
  
Crashing into the well wall and jarring his ribs, Bucky dug his bare feet in and began to climb.  
  
It felt like hours before he reached the top. Bucky had no idea how long it actually took - he measured his seconds in breaths and footsteps and flashes of the Japanese man’s face _(terrified, shoulders tight and neck straining like he was desperately resisting turning around and leaving Bucky there to drown_ ).  
  
Bucky toppled over the edge, laying face down in the grass. The raindrops that collided with his skin felt like tiny needles, instantly freezing him to the bone.  
  
“-on.”  
  
The Japanese man was talking to him, but Bucky didn’t care. He just...he needed a moment.  
  
“Come on!”  
  
The man insisted, his hands tugging at Bucky’s jacket. His skin was warm and he smelled...  
  
Afraid. The kind of fear that punched right into Bucky’s protective instincts, dragging them kicking and screaming into the light. The Japanese man reeked of fear that swam over the scent of rain like oil in a puddle.  
  
Snarling weakly, Bucky heaved himself to his feet, swaying and turning his head to find whatever was threatening this Omega. His legs protested violently. Their complaints only grew louder when he realized nothing was there.  
  
He wheeled around, patting down the Omega ( _in case he was hurt_ ), giving him his wrist ( _in case he was what was scaring him_ ), and broadcasting THREAT as vividly as he could. The Omega shivered under his hands, finally shoving at him ineffectually as Bucky repeated his pat down more thoroughly.  
  
“Fuckin’ Alphas.”  
  
The Omega hissed,  
  
“Morons, all of you. I’m scared that somebody will see us!”  
  
Bucky’s brain sluggishly worked its way back up to speed. Right. They were in enemy territory on a stealth mission. He had to set the bomb ( _protect this Omega-_ ).  
  
Shaking his head and trying to focus, Bucky turned to face the Japanese Omega properly. He was soaked to the bone, dark hair plastered to his face and shorn off at awkward angles, face smeared in some kind of oil, a small bag full of metal buttons...  
  
Wearing a prison camp uniform - Bucky would recognize one of those any day. Shit. SHIT.  
  
“There’s a camp here?”  
  
Bucky half-asks half-curses. There has to be one. Nobody would be stupid enough to run around in that uniform out here otherwise ( _stripes like that were practically a handwritten invitation to get shot_ ). The Japanese Omega stares at him incredulously.  
  
“It’s the only transit camp in Sicily. Neat cross between prison labour and intentionally pointless work - the kind of stuff you do to die.”  
  
He says in blatant East Coast English. That humour, too. Bleak.  
  
American.  
  
“Why’re ya at a well ‘stead of runnin’ then?”  
  
Bucky asks, feet twitching towards to bomb he was supposed to be rigging even as the rest of his body remained in a ( _stupid, goddamn it Bucky-_ ) ‘protective Alpha’ stance. The incredulous expression grows stronger ( _makes the Omega look younger - too young to be here_ ).  
  
“It’s a corpse well. I was collecting metal.”  
  
He answers. Disgust must flicker across Bucky’s face ( _stealing from the dead-_ ) because the Omega immediately stinks of defensiveness, forcing Bucky to feel bad about it whether he likes it or not.  
  
“I’m not getting out of here without a diversion. I do munitions - explosives. I needed something for shrapnel. I needed to burn the goddamn Italians into the ashes they sprang up from.”  
  
The Japanese Omega hisses. His scent goes rancid and Bucky feels a stab of righteous hatred go right through his own gut despite his discomfort with the Omegas words ( _he was a Strong one, that’s for sure. High impact even in this rain_ ).  
  
“Ya don’t need to do that no more.”  
  
Bucky blurts, the hatred making his head swim ( _all his usual emotional and instinctual tricks failing him in the face of the past two or so hours of stress_ ) as he tried to make it stop,  
  
“We’re blowin’ this location. Forcin’ the troops to pull out, hole up. If you wanna run...”  
  
The Omega twitches, staring somewhere off in the distance and reeking of conflict ( _his face barely moves. He was clearly raised traditionally_ ). Bucky couldn’t detect whether or not he has pack or was claimed through the downpour, though he was sure that the guy would be leaving people behind if he fled.  
  
“You’re rigging a bomb?”  
  
The Omega asked. He grinned when Bucky nodded ( _the still planes of his face completed transformed by that one expression)_ ,  
  
“I’ll finish it for you, then. I don’t think you want to go back down there. This is payment for safe passage and showing off some skills so you don’t dump me.”  
  
Bucky’s eyes slipped shut as he nodded again. He sat down hard in the mud, leaning against the outer wall of the well ( _his legs felt like jelly_ ). The Omega tsked.  
  
“Keep watch for me. Don’t just sit there, idiot.”  
  
Bucky growled under his breath ( _he WAS keeping watch. He was listening and tasting the air - he could focus better without the world spinning around him. He was going to have a fever later, he could tell_ ).  
  
He heard the Omega scramble over the edge, an appreciative hum ( _or words? The rain was muffling everything...maybe listening for an attack was a bad idea after all_ ), and then his name loud and clear.  
  
Bucky jerked to attention, reaching into the well and yanking the Omega right out of it in a rush of adrenaline. Silently, the Omega tucked himself behind Bucky, gaze sweeping to field around them without question.  
  
A light flashes at them - twice in quick succession, then once, then three times. Bucky exhaled a shaky breath.  
  
“‘S ok.”  
  
He said, leaning heavily on the Omega’s shoulder,  
  
“‘S my division.”  
  
He blinked, long and slow, then opened his eyes to Peggy Carter melting out of the stormy night. Her gaze was hard, critical, and focused entirely on the well they’d just rigged. No care at all for him.  
  
But her hands were trembling ( _or maybe Bucky was_ ).  
  
The other men close in behind her. As they step in close, Bucky detects a flicker of relief from Carter ( _her gaze sweeping over his bare feet and his bloody palms_ ). He glances at her hands again, but they steady immediately.  
  
As the men clap him on the back, something off in all of their expressions, Peggy separates herself off to the side. She looks...oddly lonely, though it's possible his dumber Alpha instincts are still acting up.  
  
Speaking of which...  
  
“What’s yer name?”  
  
He asks the Japanese Omega, head swaying when Jones picks him up in a fireman’s carry. The Omega grins at him, the quicksilver expression of someone raised to rely mostly on scent ( _it's beautiful - expressions like that on an Omega always are_ ), before hitting him with a blast of pride.  
  
“Jim Morita, at your service.”  
  
He says, tipping an imaginary cap.  
  
Dugan strides ahead of all of them, guiding the way through the rain back to base. He doesn’t pause as he announces,  
  
“Welcome to the 107th, Private Morita.”

  
______

  
  
Back at camp, Morita settles into Bucky’s side like the world’s smuggest heater, and says:  
  
“You weren’t wrong when you called me Private, Lieutenant-Colonel Dugan.”  
  
Dugan’s eyebrows go up immediately and Morita’s scent goes even smugger. Bucky loses focus for a few seconds, sinking into the feeling ( _the weirdest thing about Strong Omegas was that they seemed to feel things differently...or make Bucky feel things differently. He’d never found another Alpha who could quite describe it like he did. For instance, Morita’s emotions were bursts with a short fuse, crackling and lively as a fire, though short-lived_ ).  
  
“-joined the army with forgeries - not like the recruiters knew the difference between Chinese and Japanese anyway.”  
  
Morita was saying, chuckling bitterly,  
  
“When I got snatched from my unit, I guess they tried to report me MIA. Realized I wasn’t what I said I was and forgot all about me - if the army ever tried to get me back, I never heard a whisper of it.”  
  
“Why didn’t they keep you with other POWs? Why transit to a labour camp?”  
  
Dugan asked, tone almost skeptical enough to get Bucky’s back up. One of Dernier’s slim hands lands on the shoulder Morita wasn’t already weighing down, though ( _filling him with a sense of peace. He was safe here, so Morita was too).  
_  
“I make explosives. Damn good ones. The **Italians** ,”  
  
Morita spits that last word in a way that makes Bucky’s gut twist ( _the Sicilian insisting he be called Renato, Bucky listening to the way people in town said it - Re-naaa-to, R’n’to, Rr-nato, or like an insult_ ),  
  
“‘Lost’ my dog tags. Lost my uniform, too. My whole identity, really. Found every excuse to put me to work after their initial questioning didn’t pan out.”  
  
Bucky can hear Morita grinding his teeth. It only paused when he was actively speaking,  
  
“They probably intended to condition me in a camp until I gave in...that or they wanted me to build something slowly while they watched. I don’t know. They even left components where I could get at them easy - jokes on them, I went out and got my own.”   
  
Despite his exhaustion, Bucky clung to a flicker of memory. Morita has been swiping materials from dead men.  
  
“Right,”  
  
He groaned,  
  
“Ya dig around’ in corpses. Squishy ones - water bodies.”  
  
He sniffed exaggeratedly,  
  
“Yer nuts, Morita. An' gross.”  
  
Bucky is rewarded by a blast of amusement ( _tinged with incredulity_ ). His eyes slip shut to the noise of the 107th howling with laughter and retching sounds.  
  
“You gotta be crazy in this war.”  
  
Morita tells him, his shaking shoulders jostling Bucky just enough to keep him awake,  
  
“I’ll puke when it’s over.”

______

  
When Bucky wakes up, he’s fully dressed - he even has boots. He can just barely pick up the lingering scent of Peggy Carter on his cuffs ( _stronger and a hint distressed on the left side where the dog tags of a stranger were wound tight around his wrist_ ).  
  
The whole time Morita had talked, she hadn’t said a word ( _face pale, hands clenched_ ).  
  
Bucky couldn’t help but wonder...  
  
Had Carter known what was in that well?

______

  
Bucky doesn’t get that question answered, but he can’t stop wondering it. There was something off about Peggy Carter. He can’t seem to leave the mystery of it alone ( _leave her alone - standing just off to Dugan’s right, one step back from everyone else_ ).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morita is wrong about why he was in a transit camp. He's pretty obviously Japanese and the (very paranoid) commander of the unit that captured him was concerned he was a spy for Japan seeking to overthrow Mussolini's command and weaken his position with Germany. His story made no sense to them - they knew Japanese-American soldiers didn't exist. Therefore, they didn't want to keep him with other POWs they were under some obligation to treat well and potentially return to their home country. The person leaving him components was a fellow prisoner, but it's for the best he didn't use them. Now that he's gone, somebody else can get their hands on them...and blow up a sizeable chunk of the place after the 107th has moved out.
> 
> Peggy, for the record, had no idea about the transit camp or what that well in particular was being used for. She feels terrible about it - she knows that the activities of the 107th have put all the prisoners at risk and that the cut in supplies will likely kill a lot of them. There's nothing she can do about it now.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic is based on the musicals put on by and popular with soldiers during WWII. The chapter titles are based on song and dance numbers from the Blueprint Special "Hi, Yank!".


End file.
